Vicks is an American brand of over-the-counter medications owned by the American companies Procter & Gamble and Helen of Troy Limited. Vicks manufactures NyQuil and its sister medication, DayQuil as well as other medications in the “Quil” line. Vicks also produces the Formula 44 brand of cough medicines, cough drops, Vicks VapoRub, and a number of inhaled breathing treatments. For much of its history, Vicks products were manufactured by the family-owned company Richardson-Vicks, Inc., based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Richardson-Vicks, Inc., was eventually sold to Procter & Gamble in 1985. Procter & Gamble divested the Vicks VapoSteam U.S. liquid inhalant business and sold it to Helen of Troy in 2015.

History

In 1890, pharmacist Lunsford Richardson of Selma, North Carolina, took over the retail drug business of his brother-in-law Dr. John Vick, of Greensboro, North Carolina. After Dr. John Vick saw an ad for ''Vick's Seeds'', Lunsford Richardson began marketing ''Vick’s Family Remedies''. The basic ingredients of the range included castor oil,

liniment Liniment (from la, linere, meaning "to anoint"), also called embrocation and heat rub, is a medicated topical preparation for application to the skin. Some liniments have viscosity similar to that of water; others are lotion or balm; still other ...

, and 'dead shot' vermifuge. The most popular remedy was ''Croup and Pneumonia Salve'', which was first compounded in 1891, in Greensboro. It was introduced in 1905 with the name Vick's Magic Croup Salve and rebranded as VapoRub in 1912 at the instigation of H. Smith Richardson, Lunsford's oldest son; Smith had gained valuable sales and marketing experience while working for a period in New York and Massachusetts after attending college. Smith Richardson assumed the presidency of the company in 1919 upon his father's death. The

flu epidemic of 1918 The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

increased sales of VapoRub from $900,000 to $2.9 million in just one year. In 1931, the company began selling cough drops. In 1948, Edward Mabry became president of Vicks, then known as the Vick Chemical Company. In 1952, Vicks began selling cough syrup, and in 1959 they introduced Sinex Nasal Spray. The company began selling NyQuil in 1966. The parent company became Richardson-Merrell and then in 1982 divided into prescription drug company Merrell Dow (sold to

Dow Chemical Company The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world. Dow manufactures plastic ...

) and over-the-counter drug company Richardson-Vicks which retained the Vicks brand. The company archives (including related personal records of the Richardson family) from at least about 1920 or so, up to the 1985 sale to Procter & Gamble, are housed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In March 2015, Procter & Gamble sold the Vicks VapoSteam U.S. liquid inhalant business to Helen of Troy Ltd.

References

External links

Vicks brand website

Vicks brand website - Canada

Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Wick

Vick Chemical Company
at the ''Encyclopedia of North Carolina''

{{Procter & Gamble Vicks brands, Procter & Gamble brands Ointments Products introduced in 1890