Runny nose, sore throat, hacking cough? Do you run to the pharmacy for a cough medicine that may or may not help? Many Bridport people remember the days when the remedy of choice was Fudge\u2019s Mentholated Honey Syrup, or as the locals christened it, Fudge\u2019s Firewater. How did this potent potion come about and why is it no longer available?<\/p>\n
The story begins in the 1950s when Ken Fudge moved from London to Bridport to open his pharmacy in West Allington, next door to Balsons Butchers. For Mr Fudge, trained in London but born in Blandford, this was something of a return to his roots. At that time, many pharmacists devised their own remedies, often to secret recipes, and Mr Fudge was no exception.\u00a0 He made several nostrums, as these remedies are called, but the most popular and enduring was his Mentholated Honey Syrup (Fudge\u2019s Firewater) which, long after Mr Fudge retired, was sold at the East Street Pharmacy in Bridport, for much of that time under the supervision of Mr Morrish. Even now, the mere mention of the Fudge\u2019s name evokes a warm wave of nostalgia and longing in many Bridport people.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The medicine<\/p>\n
Fudge\u2019s Firewater was an old-style cough medicine recommended for common winter ailments: coughs, colds, influenza, loss of voice, hoarseness, sore throat and catarrh.\u00a0 The dose was one teaspoon every four hours and the label warned ominously that each spoonful should be \u201ctaken very slowly\u201d. It was sold \u201cover the counter\u201d without prescription but strictly under the control of the pharmacist. Fudge\u2019s Firewater was immensely popular and many people have told me how much they trusted it to help their symptoms: \u201cBrilliant cough mixture, couldn\u2019t beat it\u201d, \u201cAmazing medicine for coughs and sore throats\u201d, \u201cNever bought anything else\u201d, \u201cPlease, if there is a god, bring back Fudge\u2019s Firewater\u201d. People travelled long distances to purchase the medicine, holiday makers often went home with supplies and, during some winters, as many as 250 bottles of Firewater were sold each week at the East Street Pharmacy.<\/p>\n
The medicine also had a formidable reputation: \u201cIt nearly blew your head off but by golly it did the trick\u201d, \u201cTasted like red diesel mixed with the finest brandy, lovely\u201d, \u201cThe menthol really took your breath away\u201d \u201cIt was a trial to take but you knew it would make you better\u201d and several people spoke of \u201cthe Fudge\u2019s shudder\u201d.<\/p>\n
As Mr Fudge himself said: \u201cSome do swear by it, some do swear at it\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Unconventional uses of Fudge\u2019s Firewater<\/p>\n
The medicine was also a voice-saver for some professional singers and I heard about one well-known entertainer who would regularly send a friend to buy Firewater from Mr Morrish to help lubricate her vocal cords. Similarly, Marco Rossi told me that, in the 1990s, when he was part of local band, Stocky Lamaar, performing in smoke-filled pubs around Dorset, he and Al, the other vocalist, each had a bottle of the potion by them on stage. With the occasional swig of Firewater, they could sing all evening without sounding like \u201cMadge from Neighbours<\/em> at a Bonnie Tyler tribute karaoke night\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What was Fudge\u2019s Firewater and how did it work?<\/p>\n Mr Fudge\u2019s medicine was a dark brown syrupy liquid made by mixing menthol crystals and a little fudgy flavouring into Gee\u2019s Linctus, itself an old-fashioned cough remedy dating from the Victorian era. Gee\u2019s linctus, or to give it its proper name, squill linctus opiate, contains several potentially active ingredients. Morphine, a substance with an established effect on cough, but also a well-known drug of abuse, is present but at low levels. Squill, a plant extract, is another potentially active component that, paradoxically, encourages coughing and mucus removal. The medicine also contains alcohol at similar levels to a fortified wine and this may have contributed to the Firewater experience. Mr Fudge\u2019s masterstroke was to boost the effects of the Gee\u2019s linctus by adding menthol, a remedy used for many years to help with symptoms of coughs and colds; it may also act as an oral anaesthetic helping with sore throats and may relieve nasal congestion.<\/p>\n Although cough medicines cannot alter the course of viral infections, they may help you feel better and Mr Fudge\u2019s medicine attacked symptoms in several ways which is perhaps why it was so popular and so successful. It was the menthol, however, that made the potion so memorable, justifying the Firewater nickname and establishing a shared experience among those who used it, believed in it and benefitted from it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Abuse of Fudge\u2019s Firewater<\/p>\n Non-prescription medicines such as Gee\u2019s linctus, and Fudge\u2019s Firewater, have been abused by people trying to access even the small amounts of morphine they contain. For example, Gee\u2019s linctus is reported to induce a \u201clovely euphoria and dreaminess\u201d, but only if you are prepared to drink 50ml or more of the medicine! Local pharmacists were aware of the problem and tried to control it: Mr Morrish monitored all sales personally and Mr Conroy (manager during the Moss era) restricted sales to one bottle per person, with a signature.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The end of Fudge\u2019s Firewater<\/p>\n Gee\u2019s linctus gradually fell out of favour as a cough medicine because of the problem of abuse. Finding commercial sources of the linctus became more difficult and temporary interruptions to the availability of Fudge\u2019s Firewater occurred early in the 21st century.\u00a0 Then, in January 2006, a notice appeared on the window of Moss\u2019s East Street Pharmacy announcing that the medicine would be discontinued because of \u201cproblems with the supply of ingredients\u201d. Around this time, however, there had also been a change in the pharmacy regulations. Nostrums containing even small amounts of morphine, like Fudge\u2019s Firewater, now required a prescription and this change must have contributed to Moss\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n That wasn\u2019t quite the end, though, because a modified Firewater was available for a few years from the St John\u2019s Pharmacy in Weymouth. Because of the change in pharmacy regulations, people needed to persuade their doctor to issue a private prescription if they wanted the medicine; this severely affected sales and by 2009 production finally ceased. The change in regulations also means that Fudge\u2019s Firewater is very unlikely ever to reappear.<\/p>\n Fudge\u2019s Firewater served Bridport well for 50 years. The medicine is now just a memory but one that should be preserved as an important part of Bridport\u2019s history.<\/p>\n I should like to thank Angela Alexander, Stuart Anderson, Richard Balson, David Conroy, Richard Cooper, Margery Hookings, Diana Leake, Kevin Morrish, Caroline Morrish-Banham, Dipan Shah, Elizabeth Williamson, Joy Wingfield, The Bridport Museum and the many commenters on social media who generously helped me in preparing this article.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Philip Strange is Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Reading.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n He writes about science and about nature with a particular focus on how science fits in to society.\u00a0 His work may be read at http:\/\/philipstrange.wordpress.com\/<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Runny nose, sore throat, hacking cough? Do you run to the pharmacy for a cough medicine that may or may not help? Many Bridport people remember the days when the remedy of choice was Fudge\u2019s Mentholated Honey Syrup, or as the locals christened it, Fudge\u2019s Firewater. How did this potent potion come about and why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-3197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-history-community","tag-philip-strange"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}