Gripe water... Bachha ro raha hai...

I could not resist making this post. My bro's newborn was crying incessantly for some time now. One dose of the most famous brand of Gripe water in India, and the kid is now playing joyously now. It was one simple case of griping pain in the stomach.

Gripe water is a home remedy for minor gastrointestinal discomfort in children. During my days in college as an undergraduate student, we had prepared Gripe water as part of our Pharmaceutics practicals - I vividly remember the aroma of its ingredients. Gripe water is made mainly out of various aromatic oils - like Dill oil, fennel oil, etc. Purified water is used as the vehicle, and it also contains a sweetening agent and Sodium bicarbonate. Alchohol used to be used in earlier formulations, but has been removed now.
Image taken from the Internet - copyrights rest with the actual copyright owner

Gripe Water is actually a brand, owned by Woodwards. Wikipedia says:

Gripe water was discovered accidentally by William Woodward, an American who was working in England, and quickly became adopted as a prescription by physicians. The original Woodward's Gripe Water contained 3.6% alcohol, dill oil, sodium bicarbonate, sugar and water. Woodward registered "Gripe Water" as a trademark in 1876. It was initially marketed with the slogan "Granny told mother and mother told me."
 Many companies came with gripe water, but the leader in the market always remained the famous "Woodward's Gripe Water". My childhood memories are of a glass bottle, neatly wrapped in blue coloured paper wrapper with the label on it. The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear Woodward's Gripe Water is this advertisement:
This is the Hindi version, while I usually saw the Tamil Version of this. This is one classic advertisement - many people of my age would've surely seen this advertisement.

Back in College, I had eagerly tasted the concoction - it tasted sweet, with a punch of the aromatics. With the arrival of my bro's kid, I got to taste it all over again - the same old sweet aromatic taste. The recipe worked like magic on the kid - thanks to Woodwards :)

Comments

Sunup said…
Nice co-incidence! Just yesterday I was in Narayana Health City where my 1.5 year old nephew was admitted due to a case of gastroenteritis. And I saw a nurse giving him gripe water! And today I am reading your post on the same.