The Reference Challenge Column
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Note: This challenge column is not a part of Challenge.gov
Many people like a challenge. Do you? If so, we have one for you. Each month, we will post our most challenging questions. How would you answer them? The Reference Challenge will generate discussion and learning for all of us.
Our first reference challenge is the perplexing Perigarden puzzle…
The lady shared with me that her parents gave her Perigarden when she was sick. Everyone’s parents gave them Perigarden, she said. They gave us Perigarden, no matter the illness. It came in a brown bottle. For years, you could buy it across the counter. By the time I became an adult, Perigarden required a doctor’s prescription.
I looked for Perigarden in MedlinePlus, PubMed, TOXNET, our subscription databases not available to the public, and a search engine. I found two centuries-old herbal remedies, but these were not what I was looking for. What is this Perigarden?
Find out how I solved this perplexing Perigarden puzzle – next week.
Question: How would you approach this question?
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September 12, 2011
Tags: challenge, challenging questions, reference challenge Posted in: The Reference Challenge Column
Going back to my past as a teenager w/ severe dysmenorrhea, my doc recommended paregoric, which was then available OTC, but later went Rx only as a controlled substance.
W/o going far afield, I looked into my (distant) past as a teenager w/ severe dysmenorrhea. MD told me to get paregoric, then OTC, later Rx only.
Our pediatrician was famous for prescribing the ‘green medicine’ for colicky babies. Gratefully both of my daughters slept through the night. Later on we learned what it was. I took the easy way out and Googled it.
It struck me right away that perigarden was a sound-alike for paregoric. Google images shows many of the familiar brown bottle; Wikipedia details the history of paregoric availability OTC and by prescription till its discontinuation entirely in 2010.
I have worked in the medical library field for many years so I have heard lots of variations on the term Paregoric (tincture of opium). I never had it myself, but I understand it was popular in many medicine cabinents in years gone by.
Thanks, kfatkin. You were the first person to solve this mystery.