samantha90 Loc: Fort Worth,Texas

Not sure this will make your cough go away....but it will no doubt make you forget you're coughing. I find the statement under the ingredients rather alarming as well. I remember my granddaddy mentioning castor oil but this stuff sounds worse.

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Sinewsworn Loc: Port Orchard, WA

Nasty stuff!

dancers Loc: melbourne.victoria, australia

castor oil was revolting............my mum made me drink it in orange juice...........put me off oranges for ever,

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

No more cough... not breathing either LOL

Soul Dr. Loc: Beautiful Shenandoah Valley

I can see why it's called One Night Cough Syrup. You''ll be lucky to survive the night after drinking that stuff.

will

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

This wasn’t “Snake Oil”. Back in the 1700’s an 1800’s many local pharmacists manufactured Their own proprietary brands of elixirs and syrups. This was before the FDA came into existence. Grain alcohol was used as a solvent making all the ingredients soluble. The cannabis was similar to marijuana but this species was noted for being more calmative. I’m not sure but I believe the leaves were macerated in a glass mortar and pestle. Supposedly, the leaves were placed in the mortar and crushed until the “juice” was extracted from the leaves. Chloroform was a sedating agent but was extremely dangerous as it can be used as an anesthetic. Thankfully, it is no longer available. Morphine Sulphate was used as an antitussive. Morphine is rarely used today to treat coughs but Codeine Phosphate is which doesn’t cause as much euphoria as Morphine does.

Pharmacies were known to have these elixirs to assist in sales at the counter. It was not uncommon for someone to “share” a swig of this type of product. When asked, the purchaser would say “I bought it at Doc Harry’s on the corner of Main Street and Broadway!” Back then, drug regulation was pretty much non-existent and what was learned in Pharmacy Schools was gospel for us druggists or should I say apothecaries. By the way, castor beans were heated and the oil came out which was used as a laxative. It is still available but the nasty taste never seems to go away. Thanks for the look back, Samantha.

-Steve

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

Thanks for the rundown. That was very interesting and informative.

Kidding aside, during my youth, the old folks treat everything chest related with Vick's vaporub, arthritis with kerosene and wounds with white sugar.
I do not know if it was because those folk can heal by just praying or if grandparents were made of tougher leather, but those worked as they lived long productive lives.
Grandma smokes black cigarettes with no filter and the ember inside her mouth. She died just a few years shy of 100.

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

G-D bless Grandma. She is the kind of woman who not only could take slack from the youngins’ but could dish it out. I’m sure she is a woman of good breeding and made from leather. Being a pharmacist I am well aware of these potions most of them noxious. But I remember Buckley’s Cough Syrup best. The best way to describe it was it stopped the cough in its tracks if you can handle a mixture of turpentine and gasoline. When I was in Montreal I picked up a few bottles cause it is not allowed to come into the States.

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

Wow - now that's some mix. Think I would take a hard pass.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

With the rise in the availability of snake oil, I should start raising oil snakes.

Scruples Loc: Brooklyn, New York

Not really. They are hard enough to handle as it is. But I love Green Tree Boas. They are so cool when they curl up on a tree branch. The term “snake oil” really means the product is useless. This was used as a form of deceptive marketing so the validity of salesman selling this stuff were known to be bogus.

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

She sure is tough being a WW2 survivor and buried 3 of her children before my father was born.

I read a story before about a dog that was forced to drink gasoline.
It could be your Buckley Syrup as who on his right mind would do such an act if not to render aid.
It says the the dog ran in circles for half an hour before falling down on its side breathing heavy.
People who saw what happened were saddened but the dog lived.

It stopped running because it ran out of gas...

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Interesting stuff!

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

The old ways sure have reasons but deemed unsafe for today.

David Martin Loc: Cary, NC

Steve, surely you remember Parke-Davis throat disks: dime-sized wafers of capsicum, peppermint, anise, cubeb, licorice, linseed, and .... ½ minimum of chloroform. They were quite effective and pleasantly flavored. Outlawed in the 1970s.