BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE – When songwriter Frank Loesser composed that duet in 1944, the cause of the common cold had not yet been identified. Although the word “colds” came into use as early as the 16th century (Dromio said of Antipholus in Shakespeare’s 1594 “The Comedy of Errors” – “Let him walk from where he came, lest he catch cold on ‘is feet”), the cause of the world’s most prevalent infectious disease became known only in the 1950s.
And it was in 1966 that Richardson-Vicks first marketed NyQuil, a medication intended for the relief of symptoms of the common cold. According to urban legend, the name is a portmanteau of ‘nighttime tranquility.’ Pharmacist Lumsford Richardson took over the drugstore of his brother-in-law Dr. Joshua Vick in 1890, and soon compounded a salve to remedy pneumonia that was soon to be re-named the now familiar VapoRub. Proctor & Gamble bought the company in 1985.
NyQuil contains acetaminophen, noted in some medical studies to be liver damage inducing when taken too frequently, and is apparently a “favored” method of suicide.
Will there ever be a cure for the common cold? Chill, baby.
A 150-ml NyQuil bottle, with contents intact, predates today’s plastic container. A LiquiCap capsule version is available for those who wish to avoid the taste of the liquid, as well as the trouble of having to slurp it off completely from the plastic cap.Based on the label, this bottle specimen is likely to be circa-1970s, as the Richardson-Merrell merger preceded the transformation of the company into Richardson-Vicks in 1980.Interestingly, the shape the NyQuil bottle’s cross-section is a Reuleaux triangle, a form used in just a few consumer products including Pepto-Bismol (medication for stomach upset) and guitar picks. Named after German engineer Franz Reuleaux, this “curved triangle” has a constant width equal to the length of the inside equilateral triangle’s side.A print ad of NyQuil, possibly 1980s, positions the main face of the label (the product name and key description) around two sides of the bottle, instead of one side as in the previous, older specimen.The company made a daytime version of the medicine, called DayQuil, formulated to avoid the drowsiness caused by the sedating antihistamines of NyQuil. Another version called ZzzQuil is a sleeping aid, but not a treatment for colds.Should you avoid ingesting NyQuil and DayQuil simultaneously? Enough said!
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