science

Vicks

Vicks is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Vicks rather than just read about it. In short: Vicks (known in Latin America as Vick) is an American brand of over-the-counter medications owned by the American companies Procter & Gamble and Kaz Incorporated. Vicks manufactures NyQuil and its sister medication, DayQuil as well as other medications in the "Quil" line.

Key takeaways

Vicks belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Vicks to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Vicks from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Vicks (known in Latin America as Vick) is an American brand of over-the-counter medications owned by the American companies Procter & Gamble and Kaz Incorporated. 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. In German-speaking countries (except Switzerland), the brand Vicks is sold as Wick to avoid brand errors related to pronunciation. This was done to avoid obscene and potentially offensive connotation, as v pronounced natively in German is /f/ and it could be mispronounced as Fick(s) (meaning "Fuck(s)"), and Vicks is a homophone for "wichs", a conjugation of the German word "wichsen", meaning male masturbation.

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 of products included castor oil, liniment, 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, who 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. Lunsford Richardson sent out millions of samples of Vicks VapoRub, "inadvertently" inventing the concept of junk mail, say North Carolina state historians. The flu epidemic of 1918 increased sales of VapoRub from $900,000 to $2.9 million in just one year. In 1931, the company began selling cough drops. The Vicks VapoInhaler, a portable nasal inhaler providing mentholated vapor relief, was introduced in 1941, and became colloquially known as the Vick Stick.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) 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 Finding Aid for the Richardson-Vicks, Inc., Records #4468, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wick (in German) Vick Chemical Company at the Encyclopedia of North Carolina Procter & Gamble Sells Vicks VapoStream U.S. Business to Helen of Troy, Wall Street Journal

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Vicks

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Vicks claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Vicks before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Vicks ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Vicks

In research: Vicks appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Vicks in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Vicks is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Ointments, Procter & Gamble brands, Products introduced in 1890, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Vicks outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Vicks in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Vicks means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Vicks out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Vicks in simple terms?

Why does Vicks matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Vicks?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Vicks.