Medications

In retrospect, one interesting facet of growing up where and when we did concerns how we were dosed with one thing or another when injured or sick. (One remedy which was thankfully not handed down from Mom-Mom to Mom was the treatment for childhood croup: a generous helping of kerosene.) The bathroom medicine cabinet at both Delanco and Medford was always stocked with things whose purpose was known only to adults. There was always some Milk of Magnesia, and the strange cobalt-blue glass object -- used, as I recall, for eyewash treatments -- which looked like a miniature soft-boiled-egg server. There might have been some witch hazel there, or maybe it was stowed in the bathroom closet (buried under a heap of washcloths), and ditto the hydrogen peroxide. Whatever those two things were actually meant to be used for, at least in that household, I don't think I ever saw the bottles opened.

Here are some things I've recalled:

• Mercurochrome: Do they even make/sell this stuff anymore? From what I remember of the label on the little brown bottle, it wasn't an over-the-counter thing -- but it's hard to imagine it actually required a prescription. Why? Because it was so benign. Orange-colored, it was, and it was swabbed on a cut or scrape using the not-quite-an-eyedropper cap of the bottle. Attached to it was a thin plastic or glass tube, as I recall, and the mercurochrome was taken up and held inside the tube using the squeezable knob on the cap.
• Tincture of merthiolate: I don't remember what color this was, but I remember the name. Toni recalls its use much better than I do; she tells me it stung like crazy, and was always employed by her father in situations where mercurochrome just wasn't strong enough. (She said her daddy's theory was that the greater the pain of the remedy, the better it was for you.)
• Spirit of nitre: This was a strange liquid, administered orally, with a weird taste -- kind of cloying + medicinal at the same time. I don't remember what it was a treatment for. I just remember hating hating hating it, to the point where -- whatever the ailment -- I grew to prefer suffering in silence rather than admitting I was afflicted. Gad. I'm practically retching just thinking about it.
• Father John's Medicine: A thick, tan liquid, roughly the look and consistency of a coffee milkshake which had been bottled and put in the pantry for a couple of days. Administered by the spoonful. Once again, what exactly it was good for escapes me, but I have a vague sense that its use was preventative rather than curative. Had an interesting taste -- kind of like it was spiced with cinnamon. It came in a brown bottle whose label had probably been unchanged since 1910 or so, lettered in some old-fashioned way and with a photo of the Father himself, clerical collar and all.
  

That isn't much, but it's all I remember right now. Anything the rest of you can come up with?

Update 3/14/05: Well, Cindy -- all common sense and practicality all of a sudden -- did the obvious thing and found out, via the Web, that Father John's is still being made. Here's the photo from the site she pointed me to:

Amazing, isn't it? Even better is a history of the use of religious figures -- particularly Father John -- in promoting the healthful effects of patent medicines, on the BottleBooks Web site. Which, ahem, Cindy did not provide me information about, but which she shamed me into hunting for.

As for spirit of nitre, it is apparently a substance used by medieval alchemists (!). Among the other names by which the ghastly stuff is/was known: Nitric Acid, HNO3 or Ethyl Nitrite, C2H5NO2, "also known as the sweet spirit of nitre or Nitrous Ether." It is a "diuretic and diaphoretic" (tending to make one pee or sweat, respectively, which I guess would make it useful if the patient had a fever). I found one site which said:

Nitric Ether is a refrigerant, diuretic, and antispasmodic, well known as "sweet spirit of nitre." Used externally, its evaporation relieves headache, and it is sometimes applied to burns. It is used internally to relieve nausea, flatulence, and thirst in fevers; also as a diuretic. Dose, from ten minims to one drachm. The smaller dose taken in a little warm water or gruel is useful as a sudorific in cases of cold and chill, to induce and promote the proper action of the skin which has been checked. If a larger dose be taken, it acts as a diuretic and not as a sudorific, and so fails to produce the diuretic effect.

Whatever the hell that means.

As for merthiolate and mercurochrome: The Maryland Department of the Environment helpfully informs us, on their page of warnings about mercury in everyday substances, that these two products "are no longer sold in drug stores." For which future generations of bruised, contused, and lacerated children can all be thankful. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't still buy them at eBay, which is where I got this photo: