At formula 143, Burma-Vita had a stable product. “Frankly, terrible stuff,” Leonard recalled years later. Circa 1932 container (Andy Frederick photo) Noren ordered the ingredients he thought would work. Leonard handed him a tube of Lloyd’s Euxesis and asked if he could concoct something less gooey that would function as a brushless shaving cream. Noren, a Minneapolis druggist contracted an seemingly untreatable ailment that compelled him to move to Tucson, Arizona for “the sunshine cure.” Upon his successful recovery and return to the north country, he contacted his old friends at Burma-Vita Company, hoping for employment. The agent gave the Odells a tube of English ‘Lloyd’s Euxesis,” the original brushless shaving cream, as an example. The family’s agent at the local wholesale drug company, from whom it procured the ingredients for the liniment, suggested Burma-Vita should formulate something that families could use all the time, not justwhen they were ailing. Vita suggested it had an effect on life for a broad range of ailments. Every rural family knew what liniment was for and Burma implied an exotic source of the main ingredient. Leonard Odell was the grandson of a lawyer who made Malaysian liniment for a little extra income. We’ll be celebrating anything that helps pass the miles and the cars that get us there during the month of June. Editor’s note: This piece is part of the Journal’s Road Trip Month.
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