August 20

[The Story Teller]

August 20
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Vicks VapoRub
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“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”
—Flora Whittemore
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Sometimes success comes from putting two and two together. It sounds simple enough. The problem is determining which two and two to combine. For years, treating the common cold has been a problem. It has long been known that some measure of relief could be gained from opening the nasal passages with various aromatic medications and vaporizations. From ancient times, poultices, plasters, herbal vapors, and the like have been touted as effective cold remedies. But most of those “cures” had unpleasant side effects. They smelled horrible and frequently irritated the skin, and using vapors in conjunction with steam often resulted in facial burns. By the turn of the twentieth century, druggists throughout the country were searching for an effective ointment with none of the drawbacks.



Sometime in the 1890s, Lunsford Richardson, a druggist in Selma, North Carolina, put together a salve for his “croupy” baby. He used menthol, a little known drug from Japan, in an ointment base. When the salve was applied to the chest or nose, the heat of the body would vaporize the menthol and permit the medicated vapors to be inhaled for hours. The ointment became one of several items sold under the name Vicks Family Remedies, and the product was eventually named Vicks VapoRub. The idea for the Vicks name came from a magazine advertisement for Vick’s Seeds. Since Richardson’s brother-in-law was named Vick, and because “Vicks” was short and easy to remember, Richardson selected it as the name for his product.



Consider This: The ingredients for success may already be out there simply waiting for someone to put them together.



Submitted by Richard