For most people, the memories of the cough and colds of childhood are synonyms for a migrate of menthol in a dark blue jar with a turquoise cap.
For more than a century, Vicks Vaporub has been a family name on all continents. How it became one has roots in the Spanish flu pandemic in the early twentieth century.
The story begins with an act of paternal love.
In 1894 in the state of North Carolina in the east of the United States, the son of a pharmacist named Linsford Richardson was sick with Crup, a respiratory that causes a bark cough.
Desperate to find a treatment, Richardson began trying mixtures of oils and aromatic chemicals in his pharmacy and produced an ointment that helped his son.
But this was not Vicks Vaporub, at least not yet.
Seeing that his ointment had worked for his son, Richardson began selling it for 25 cents per bottle. The strong smell product consisted of mentol, camphor, eucalyptus and several other mixed oils in a petroleum jelly base. The ointment helped open blocked noses, and when it rubbed on the chest, the steam calmed the cough.
Richardson Initial appointed his concoction of Vick’s Croup & Pneumonia Salve. An enthusiastic gardener thought or the name after seeing an advertisement of seeds of the Vicks plant, whose leaves smell Mentol when they crush. Hello too, Borred made the name of his brother -in -law, Dr. Joshua Vick, a trusted doctor in his city of Greensboro. I felt that “Vick” was “short, easy to remember and looked good on a label.”
“ Magic ” Steam Uglane
In 1911, 17 years after the ointment, Richardson’s son, Henry Smith, who suffered from Crup, directed the family business. The product Vick’s Vaporub Save from Vick’s Magic Croup Salve renamed the product, the name under what had been since 1905. That year, the packaging also changed the glass transparent to the blue distinctive cobalt.
By then, Richardson also created 21 remedies for several ailments, including the small liver pills of Vick for “constipation and tortidal liver”; Liniment of turtle oil for “sprains, holes and rheumatism”; Take all Sarsaparilla to purify “bad blood”; And Grippe Guters for the flu. They were sold under the company of Family Remedios of Vick, which was established in 1905. But none sold as well as the original ointment.
Then, in 1911, Henry suspended all other products, changed the name of Vick Chemical business and began to focus only on marketing and the distribution of its exclusive product. The company was distributing large amounts of free samples, while sellers published advertisements in trams and visited pharmaceuticals, urging the topic to test the product.
Marketing dooring the Spanish flu
Seven years later, in 1918, the most fatal pandemic in modern history rugged worldwide. The Spanish flu claimed the lives of 50 million people more than eight times the number of deaths of COVID-19.
This was when Vick’s Vaporub sales were flying.
“His closest opponent was Ely’s Balm Balkan … something like an imitator product, but it doesn’t seem to have had the same cache,” said Catharine Arnold, author of the book Pandemic 1918.
He added that they were other remedies for respiratory ailments, including coughs, colds and flu, such as Horehound honey and Hale’s tar. Some products did not resist the test of time, such as the “vaporizers”, similar to modern nebulizers, and throat loosers such as Formamint. It contained the chemical formaldehyde, which is toxic in large quantities.
However, a marketing campaign directed by Smith Toke the Vicks brand on the global stage.
When the pandemic hit, the company produced a series of six ads. Instead of promoting Vick’s steam, the series focused on raising awareness about the Spanish flu and included information on symptoms, treatment and tips to avoid getting sick. He urged people not to panic and transmitted that the brand was concerned with people’s well -being at a shady moment. The flu was just another variation of an influenza that hits every century and is caused by germs that joined the nose, throat and bronchial tubes, the ads said. Vick’s vaporub “would throw the flu germs” and facilitate breathing, they said.
Years later, the precision of this content was criticized. Even so, “at that time, this announcement must have seemed reassuring, it tells readers that it was the same old flu, alone, of course, it was not,” said Arnold.
“The Spanish flu was an atypical autoimmune virus that attacked the most young and more cautious unusual reactions, such as violent bleeding and notorious cyanosis of the heliotrope when people’s skin became blue.”
However, the advice in the ads to rest and remain in bed was “sensible,” he added, because the virus spread through human contact.
Become a family name
Sales fired, and in October 1918, seven months after the outbreak of the Pandemic – Vick Chemical Company informed pharmacists that a great demand had eliminated their excessive stock. Supplies are expected to last four months had been exhausted in three weeks.
The newspaper notices published at that time showed that the company had recovered orders for 1.75 million steam bottles in a single week, and the daily turnover of the business was approximately $ 186,492. The bottles arrived in three sizes that sewed 30 cents, 60 cents and $ 1.20.
“The big shipments are on their way to Jobbers [wholesalers] By freight and express. Until they arrive, there may be a temporary shortage. All postponed offers. Buy only in small lots, “said a notice.
The company informed the public that it was day and night to catch up with the demand. The orders received were twice the daily production of the company, and by November 1918, the firm said that its factory was 23.5 hours a day to produce 1.08 million bottles weekly.
The product won the popularity door worldwide, the pandemic, and according to the company’s data, the SteamBos sales grew from $ 900,000 to $ 2.9 million from 1918 to 1919.
Subsequently, Vick Chemical Company continued to market its product in a novel way. He sent millions of free samples to the mailboxes and in 1924 he published a 15 -page announcement in the form of a children’s book called The Story of Blix and Blee. The story, written in Rima verses, was about two elves called Blix and Blee that lived in a vicky vaporub bottle under an old Jujube tree. One night, they rushed to the rescue of a sick child, Little Dickie. The elves convinced the child, who refused to take medicine giving birth to their mother, to use Vicks Vaporub to calm his cough so he could sleep.
More than 130 years later, Vicks Vaporub is sold in approximately 70 countries on five continents with more than 3.78 million liters (more than 1 million gallons) or produces annually. Only from 2011 to 2016, there were more than one billion units sold worldwide, according to their own procter and commitment.
For Arnold, Vicks Vaporub is part of an American childhood.
“Generations of us grew with that relative composed of Ceroso Mentol, Tunic and omitted Pajamas or the Vicks Duration Season,” he said. “That well-known blue and green label is both an American cultural icon and Coca-Cola or Campbell soup.”
This article is part of ordinary elements, extraordinary stories, a series about the surprising stories behind known elements.
Read more than the series:
How the inventor of the inflatable castle saved lives
How a popular Peruvian refreshment was “a to to to to to to to totrag coca-cola
How a victim of drowning became a rescue icon
