But the Boomerang Box is coming to the rescue, to prevent you and your classmates from suffering from sore throats!

The Boomerang Box has just left Felixstowe, UK, carrying a load of Hall's Mentholyptus Cough Drops®. These cough drops are designed to soothe and cool sore throats. And with a whole container-load full, you can be sure that will help a lot of throats!

What makes cough drops work?

Well, in the case of Hall's Mentholyptus Cough Drops, it's the secret ingredient: menthol.

Menthol is made from peppermint, a plant that is native to Europe but is also grown in the U.S. and Canada. People have been growing and trading peppermint for all sorts of uses since the 1700s. Peppermint leaves and flowers can be carefully dried and then pressed to extract a substance called 'oil of peppermint.' It takes between 35 and 40 pounds of peppermint plants to produce one pound of oil. Menthol is made from this oil of peppermint.

Menthol smells like mint and it can do three things to help a sore throat. It can cool your throat. It can decongest your clogged-up nose and throat. And it can numb your sore throat, letting you forget how much it hurts to swallow.

Hall's Mentholyptus Cough Drops are made by a company called Pfizer. This company, which has offices in the US and UK, makes many prescription and over-the-counter medicines, including some that you probably already have in your medicine cabinet: including Sudafed for colds, Benadryl for allergies, Neosporin for cuts and scrapes, and even Rolaids for upset stomachs.

Next time you and your parents open your medicine cabinet to treat a cut or take care of a cold, you might want to look more carefully at the many medicines that help keep us healthy.

And you might even think of the Boomerang Box as a traveling medicine cabinet, carrying a load of sore throat relief to the people all over the United States!

Study Question: Can you find Felixstowe? See if you can trace the Boomerang Box's route from Felixstowe to New York.

Check out past Trade Topics entries!