Robinson's Fever Cure
 

"Robinson's Fever Cure"

Circa 1950, my mother used to give me and my sister a dark syrupy liquid from a bottle when we were ill with a cold. I think this was the name, but I am not positive.

It tasted like Jaegermeister liquor.

I can find nothing whatsoever via Google, so I am wondering if it was only a local product sold in the Accy area.

Any help?

Thanks!

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

I was growing up in the 1950's....I cannot recall Robinsons Fever Cure....I can remember Fennings Fever cure, but never had it...so I would not know what it looked like or what it tasted like.

I can remember Bile Beans,Fennings Cooling powders, Fennings Little Lung Healers, Scotts Emulsion, Indian Brandee(nothing at all like Brandy)Dr Collis Brownes Cholodyne, Carters Little Liver Pills, worm cakes...but not Robinsons Fever Cure.
Could you perhaps have got the name wrong?
The only thick brown gloopy stuff that was ever given to us was sulphur and treacle(nasty stuff) to purify the blood.
I know this does not answer your question,there may be others a bit older than me who have the answer

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

I too remember all the patent "cures" that Margaret remembers but I did once partake of Fennings Fever Cure but I think that was quite thin and colourless. I wonder if Robinson's Fever Cure was made by one of the local chemists, many did bottle their own concoctions.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

I also wondered that too...but would it have a brand name?

Those were the days....when the chemist mixed their own medicines.
I can remember Ma getting us a tonic from Thornbers .chemist at the corner of Higher Antley St and Ormerod St.
It came in a large glass bottle with a real cork....it was apple green and tasted vile.
We recovered so that we did not have to swallow more of the horrible stuff.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

We think that Mum had two bottles. One was a bottle of nasty-tasting stuff, and that may have been the "fever cure", but it wasn't "Robinson's". If I do a search on "Robinson's (cough or cold), all I get is "Robitussin". I am perplexed that we cannot come up with the name.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Yes Margaret I remember bottles we used to get from Thornber's and they used to just have a hand written label. But when I left school was an apprentice printer and one of the first jobs I had to set was a label for some mixture for Emrick Eccles in Union Road I forget the full name of the concoction but it was something Balsalm. I remember the job mainly because I thought the chemist was called Henry Kettles and when the boss saw the proof he bust out laughing.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Maybe that is the modern name for this cough mixture.
Your Robinsons Fever Cure....how you describe the appearance and the taste, sounds much more like a cough medicine.
And this trade name Robi (from the Robinson name) tussin is the Latin word for cough...whooping cough is medically called pertussis....so maybe that is the answer....but only an educated guess.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Maybe the labels were for Friars Balsam....the proper name for this is Compound Tincture of Benzoin....but everyone knew it as Friars Balsam.

I have used this many many times in my career....in a Nelson's inhaler with hot water. Then inhaled....excellent for clearing mucus from chests...used after surgery....and for patients with bronchitis....a dark runny treacle consistency

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

I don't know about the UK's choices, but I don't think Robitussin comes with the "Jaegermeister" flavor. Vick's formula 44 does, but that came into existence in the U.S. in the 1960s or 1970s.

I am fairly certain that the name was "Robinson's", but I don't recall the rest of the name. My sister told me "fever cure", but I think she got Mum's two bottles mixed up.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

I remember it as "Fennings fever mixture" a colourless liquid and the worst I ever tasted.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Well, I know that Robitussin has a few flavours, but back in the 50's which is when you are talking about....cough mixture was invariably brown and gloopy....or a terrible red artificial cherry flavour.
You were meant to hold your nose and swallow it....if you complained you were told that it had to taste bad to do you good:confused::confused::confused:.
Never really got that concept....well, yes perhaps I did.
I actually liked Chlorodyne....and was once found under the stairs at my grandmas having slurped a goodly amount.
I only did it once.....I was given salt water to drink to make me sick it up

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

The Robinson's, or whatever, was given to us circa 1950. I remember it because I loved the flavor, so I kind of doubt it was the nasty "fever cure". We emigrated to the U.S. in the mid-1950s, and I always thought about that flavor but could not find it until Jägermeister became popular in the U.S. in the 1980s.

It is looking more-and-more as if it may have been a local concoction sold by a chemist in the Accy area.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

My mother used Fennings Fever Cure for everything and it worked. She used to make me drink it straight from the bottle and after one swig you were cured because you never wanted another. I always used to swear it was poison and was overjoyed to discover later in life that at one point they had to reformulate it (probably before I was forced to drink it but you never know...) in order to remove the Nitric Acid and Arsenic.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

I seem to remember the name FENNINGS little HEalers, or am i imagining that name? have no idea what they were?

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

No Cashy....you are not imagining it.
Fennings Little(lung) Healers were tiny little pills that were taken to relieve a bad chest...or a cough.
Don't know what was in them....and I never tried them....there were lots of strange medicinal things you could get at the corner shop....but steer clear of Indian Brandee....it is camel pee in disguise.
I once feigned a belly ache to get my grandma to give me some....she did and it was horrible. Nothing at all like Brandy(which I once had an illicit swig of one Christmas it was for the pudding).

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

FENNINGS little healers still going Fennings Little Healers 20mg tablets | LloydsPharmacy Info on Fennings fever mixture Bottle of Fennings' Fever Mixture, England, 1950-1960

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

It says you need a prescription for this....heck we used to buy them at Greenhalgh's grocers....I think they were 4d.
And it does not say what is in them!

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Now I know...it's ipecacuhana...i use that as a homeopathic remedy for coughs....and it works.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/f...ngs-57170.html
See...we are still chewing on the same subjects.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Spirit of Ipecac makes you throw up (calls for 'Ralph').

Well, we never did find anything definitive about Robinson's, but thanks to you all for your ideas and comments.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Yes, it was commonly used to treat those in A&E who had taken overdoses(in the cases where it was safe to induce vomiting)....but in small doses it is effective in clearing the chest of mucus.
I use the homeopathic version of this and it is effective(my daughter is a trained homeopath).
We might not have got to the bottom of things, but it has produced some interesting nostalgic posts(that can't be bad).

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Fennings Fever Cure was a clear liquid with a very sour taste

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Still wondering about this, and I stumbled across the name "Roberts Lobeline" (tastes good!"). But the name doesn't Google. Have you heard of it?

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discus...m-childhood/p6

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Nope, that does not ring any bells for me.
If we had a cough Ma would trot along to Thornbers chemists and get the chemist to make up a cough bottle....brown liquid or sticky sweet cherry.
The brown tasted horrible and the cherry...well it never saw cherries...the closesti t came to cherry was the colour.
Venos was available, but the bottles were to small(and too eear) for the industrial use that our large family needed.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Also, Owbridges Cough Mixture, but the name is unfamiliar to me.

Owbridge's Lung Tonic, 1939 - The Skittish Library

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Yes, I remember that one too, but I can't say we ever had it....or not that I remember.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

here in Canada we have Buckley's cough mixture, and it tastes horrible.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Margaret, we must have lived near each other, we used to go to Thornbers Chemist, we lived on Arncliffe Ave.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

We lived on Riley's hill and my mum stayed there until she died in feb 2018.
(near Priestly clough and Highams weaving shed)
The Thornbers we went to was on Ormerod St.
Thornbers had chemists all over the locality...and when I married and moved to Clayton, there was one on the corner of the street.
It was a good job too.....when I was pregnant I got what they called a 40 week cough....drank bottles and bottles of their own made cough mixture

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

I remember talking to a woman a few years ago who'd worked as a receptionist for a village doctor where they dispensed their own medicines. She told me they had 2 big vats of cough mixture that were different colours but essentially the same stuff. Wonder if that was the same with Thornbers. I'm sure I had both colours at some point along with some really bright yellow stuff that they used to give me for hay fever.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Well, I am not sure whether they were the same thing...the brown one wasn't sweet, but it was heavily mentholated, the red one was very sweet, very sticky(I once sneezed when I had just had a big spoonful of this stuff and in stuck my mum's hair down very nicel-far better than amami)...the cherry stuff did not taste the same as the brown stuff...but they could have had the same ingredients in different quantities I suppose.
Neither was pleasant......another trick for coughs was being held over the fumes of a tar boiler...not much good in the winter though....no roads being tarred then.
Ah, the old remedies.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Margaret, that is hilarious - sorry, but I do have a warped sense of humour at times. I hope the hands holding the child over the tar boiler were strong ones....

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Although I havn't ever been held over a tar boiler I can remember being held downwind from one on a few occasions and being told to breathe deeply,thanks for the memories Marge, Dotti.
Stay Happy, The Luddite.

Re: Robinson's Fever Cure
 

Ma was not laughing Dorothy, she was well and truly showered....who knew that a dessertspoon of sticky medicine could cover a whole adult face....and hair?
I swear I did not do it on purpose.