If you were a woman with a child living in the 1800s and your child was sick, you might have to give Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup. What would be the result? Death.
Because this syrup is not a medical drug, as you might think. Even if it was marketed as such, it contained jaw-dropping ingredients, even for adults!
And why were parents giving this “medicine” to their children?
Charlotte Winslow, the owner of the syrup, was a nurse.
Used especially by very young, teething babies and promising ‘comfort’, the drug found a fast market in the late 1800s.
Babies who drank it would become lethargic, calm, and almost ecstatic. What was in this popular ‘soothing’ syrup?
It contained a combination of alcohol and opium, especially morphine and some chemicals!
Today, this information would be shocking. But it was not uncommon for such ingredients to be present in many drugs at the time, and for people in general to be unaware of the long-term health risks or addictive properties of opium.
The dosage of morphine in Mrs. Winslow’s Comforting Syrup caused babies to die one by one. Years ago, the ingredients of medicines were unfortunately unknown. Naturally, the contents of this syrup were also kept secret.
Babies who drank the syrup fell into a deep sleep and never woke up.
Parents thought that what they were giving their children was a medical drug, but there was more to it than morphine: Alcohol.
Morphine was an addictive painkiller made from opium. At the time, morphine was even included in patent medicines. But for babies, even a tiny dose was fatal.
Unfortunately, the medical knowledge and supervision of the time was not sufficient to anticipate and prevent such risks.
An article published in Collier’s Magazine in 1905 opened the eyes of the American public to the opaque pharmaceutical world of the time. The article, titled “The Great American Swindle”, described how pharmaceuticals were causing the opium epidemic.
This revelation led to the creation of the Pure Food and Drug Act, passed in 1906, which also set medical standards.
Did you think the law stopped them?
Despite all this, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup continued to trade by removing morphine from the recipe. Of course, not everything went so innocently. She was now known everywhere as the “Baby Killer”.
Until the 1930s, medicine remained on the shelves. The colorful and beautiful advertisements were enough to dazzle people. Instead of the smiling, breathing refreshed and calm babies they showed in the advertisements, there were actually dying babies.
From Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, we learned once again how important it is to raise public awareness and to ensure that medical procedures are carried out legally.
