[The historic study on the health drink-especially on the origin of health drink and the formation of its market-].
The health drink is oral liquids which are classified as elixirs or limonades and so on, which are peculiar to Japan and differ from other liquids to glass a dose of drug. It has mainly been divided into two classes by glassed volume (dosage) in the bottle. One class is the drink tonic which is the capacity of 100 ml and another is the mini-drink tonic which is 50 ml and less. In addition, oral liquid glassed with an ampule is called the ampule tonic. Such drugs were thought to appear after World War II and have been widely known since 1960. However, tonics which had consisted of recipies like the present health drink were shown to exist before World War II. Thus, it was considerable that such prescription formulas were also applied to the ampule tonic and drink tonic. On the other hand, one of the important problems with health drugs was how to make their taking easy in its development. Further, it was necessary to add to acid antiseptic and high content of sugar etc., because the liquids generally had been putrescible. It might be one of the reason for their appearances that it was allowed to produced a liquid which was stabler and made its taking easier to be released from the above limit by the introduction of a dose-glassed liquid. In 1960, the ampule tonic quickly became popular and the drink tonic followed. It was probably caused by changes on the standard and style of living involved the enhancements of the labor time, purchasing power and sense on the health and active propaganda of the manufacturers. In this way, the market has satisfactorily expanded. However, because such medicines liked beverages appeared, it was difficult to distinguish their differences since 1965. Therefore, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has performed some administrative guidances. In 1978, it regulated new approval of the production of 100 ml drink tonics, which led to the appearance of the mini-drink tonic. Its market rapidly expanded since 1985. In 1991, its scale reached about 200 billion yen on both drink tonics and the sale volume was 20% at drug stores in Japan. The health drink is supporting the economic foundation of drug stores at present.
Ohe
H
H
Tokiwa Kampo Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Osaka.
Harima
S
S
Matsumoto
Y
Y
D001628:Beverages / Q000266:history*; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D007564:Japan; D004366:Nonprescription Drugs / Q000266:history*
D004366:Nonprescription Drugs