Japanese OTC cold medicines are a little bit intimidating.

The rules are different here so Japanese medications are not always the same as the ones I’m familiar with.. Certain cough medicine ingredients that I’ve taken in America are illegal here, but codeine is easily obtained in cold preparations.

The packages try to make it easy to figure out what’s what. I suppose that’s so sick and groggy natives don’t have to think too hard, but it’s helpful for the functional illiterate, too. Illustrations of cartoon people with red circles around their ailing parts, or beautifully shaded 3-D anatomical illustrations with arrows and flowcharts keep the unwary from buying stomach medicine when a headache remedy is in order.

But that doesn’t help much when you get to the ingredient list. Can you decipher these?

• rin [kanji] jihidorokodein
• dl-[kanji] mechiruefedorin
• senuga [kanji] ekisu
• toranukisemu [kanji]

Did you figure them out? I think the first two are dihydro-codeine and methyl-ephedrine. The other two have me stumped.

I took it anyway. I think it helped. Posted by kuri at January 10, 2001 08:12 AM