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Pure Food and Drugs

One of the worst patent medicine abuses was the addiction of babies given "soothing syrups" containing varying amounts of morphine, heroin, opium, or laudanum (a mixture of alcohol and opium) to stop their crying. The 1906 law required only that the narcotic and the dose be declared on the label. Several newspaper and national magazines together with the American Medical Association began the fight against the "soothers." Retail druggists pledged to stop selling them over the counter and a federal narcotic law, the Harrison Act of 1914, finally made this illegal.

c. 1910

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