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consider the lozenge: heroin, candy, and halls

in the 19th century, doctors began adding morphine, heroin and formaldehyde to tablets in an effort to stop coughs.

by sadaf ahsan

feb 10 2021

5 minute read

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the history or cough lozenges: from heroin to halls

lozenges and cough candies have a long and storied past. getty

fisherman’s friend. halls. cepacol. luden’s. ricola. vicks.

do each or any of these send a shudder through your nostril or a tingle down your throat? consider the time when those tiny, crinkled halls wrappers seemed to be everywhere from falling out of your glove compartment to littering your desk drawer, and that minty burning sensation surging through your nose as if you’ve just inhaled a brand new sharpie. you can taste it right now, can’t you?

one wonders, then, how these brands became synonymous with the common cold, and when lozenges became an essential medical currency, second perhaps only to aspirin. who hasn’t, after all, fished a cough drop out from the bottom of their bag on a random day and passed it along to a friend or co-worker coughing up a storm as if it were a piece of gum?

known by a series of aliases, including and not limited to troche, cachou, cough sweet, the rather conspicuous horehound and the adorable cough lolly, your average lozenge performs the simple task of calming and lubricating any irritation in the throat. they serve as relieving products, not cures.

so how did this product end up commonly being referred to as a most unappetizing “lozenge”? well that word is a synonym for diamond (based on the french word “losange”), which is also why some cough lollies you might encounter take the shape of a diamond. consider it a bit of luxury for your throat.

like many prevailing medicines, lozenges originated in ancient egypt, specifically 1000 bc. then, they were often made of honey, with flavours ranging from citrus to spice.

in the 19th century, however, lozenges took on a far less simple formula when doctors began adding morphine and heroin to the tablets in an effort to stop the cough before it could happen. formaldehyde was also slipped in by some ne’er-do-well brands. of course, soon after, these dangerous ingredients were nixed in fear of inciting opioid addictions in those simply attempting to fight off a common cold.

in an effort to ward off any residual fears, brands would specifically signify the ingredients in their formulas. keatings cough lozenges, for example, made one thing very clear in an 1892 ad : “they are invaluable. they contain no opium nor any violent drug.” phew.

another ad , for peps in 1917, assured its lozenges were as “pure as the pines they come from, free from all drowsy drugs, peps are the greatest discovery of the age. substitutes are worse than useless.” indeed, it was a dog-eat-dog world for lozenge brands.

at the time, these ads would specifically be marketed to singers, public speakers, soldiers and miners, and especially during the winter. now, there are specific guidelines in canada on how to market lozenges, down to the ingredients and instructions, as they’ve become essential to just about anyone.

most lozenge companies, however, had much more charming beginnings, many having started as candy manufacturers. which makes a lot of sense, as lozenges aren’t dissimilar to candy in their construction and even, if you’re lucky, taste.

take, for example, smith brothers, whose lozenges were especially popular in the late 1800s. it was owned by brothers andrew and william. they had gotten the idea from their father james, who owned a confection shop called james smith & sons sweet shop in poughkeepsie, n.y.

as legend has it, in 1847, james met a peddler named sly hawkins, who sold him a recipe for a “cough candy.” james then used his candy-making experience to create something akin to a sweet with multiple flavours and medicinal properties. the product was a quick hit and, after their father died in 1866, andrew and william took over the business.

in hopes of keeping drugstores and other similar brands from imitating their lozenge product, the brothers sold the cough drops in branded boxes, featuring a logo of their bearded faces.

as their company history states, when the product was trademarked in 1877, the word “trade” appeared under the picture of william and the word “mark” under andrew. the brothers soon became known as the nicknames trade and mark, and their logo became a beloved pop culture visual, popping up in comics and newspapers everywhere, helping to propel the company and its lozenges to even greater heights.

try as they might, however, the smith brothers did face competition just a few short years later when, in 1881, william luden created the first menthol cough drops. he, too, had a clever marketing strategy : offer samples of his cough drops to railroad workers, who would travel across the country sharing the news through word of mouth. he also included endorsements from doctors in his print ads, helping to shift the lozenge’s reputation from a soothing candy to a sweet cough drop.

halls, one of the more popular brands in canada, originated in the u.k. in 1893, and was also a family business, run by brothers thomas harold hall and norman smith hall. while they didn’t get their start in the confection world, they did have their feet in something sweet, originally working as jam manufacturers. unlike their competitors, they moved in the opposite direction, and began selling sweets well after their cough drops brought big business.

in 1927, their company founded mentho-lyptus , a cough drop containing menthol and eucalyptus, and the brand’s most popular lozenge variety. together, the ingredients act as a local anesthetic, creating a cooling sensation. still, in some places, halls is considered a candy and not at all a cough drop. and, apparently, that comes down to climate: in the northern hemisphere, halls is sold as a cold relief product, while in hotter and drier countries, it’s marketed as a refreshing candy.

today, the halls brand accounts for more than 50 per cent of lozenge sales worldwide and is the leading sugar confectionery brand in the world proving that yes, you can do both. and, even if you’re not sick, sometimes all you want is a cough lolly to leave a sweet little tingle in your throat.

sadaf ahsan is a toronto-based culture writer, editor and stereotypical middle child. she can be reached here.

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consider the lozenge: heroin, candy, and halls

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consider the lozenge: heroin, candy, and halls

in the 19th century, doctors began adding morphine, heroin and formaldehyde to tablets in an effort to stop coughs.

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