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Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup was a patent medicine manufactured in 1845 by druggists Jeremiah Curtis and Benjamin A. Perkins of Bangor, Maine. The two formed a company, Curtis and Perkins. They named the syrup after Charlotte Noyes Winslow, Curtis' mother-in-law, who the company claimed was "an old and experienced nurse and female physician." The company began marketing the nostrum to parents of small children, primarily to ease the pain of teething or intestinal ailments such as diarrhea. Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup gained wide popularity in the United States and the British Commonwealth. Promotional materials included recipe books, calendars and trading cards. Unbeknownst to parents, Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup contained morphine sulfate and alcohol. Even with recommended dosing, the syrup caused respiratory distress, addiction, and death in its users, often infants and small children.

In 1911 the American Medical Association issued a publication titled "Nostrums And Quackery" in which, in a section called "Baby Killers", it incriminated Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup. Due to litigation and changes in labeling laws, the manufacturer reduced, then eliminated the amount of morphine and alcohol in its product and dropped the word "Soothing" from its name. The product remained on the market until 1930.

Background
Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup was among many nineteenth century patent medicines targeted toward infants and children, including Mother's Friend, Black Drop, Godfrey's Elixir, Dalby's Carminative, Street's Infant's Quietness, and Atkinson's Royal Infants Preservation. These opium infused soothing syrups, according to Murrell's Poisons by Dr. William Murrell, resulted in 150,000 children deaths per year. These syrups were seen as a progressive alternative to cutting the gums of babies to relieve the pain and pressure of teething, using leeches, or gargling with mercury. The syrups worked as a sedative and, since a side effect of opiates is constipation, also relieved the symptoms of diarrhea. What parents didn't know was that the high opium and alcohol content of these syrups could act as a respiratory depressant.

Curtis and Perkins
Charlotte Noyes Winslow is given credit for inventing a opium-laced soothing syrup in 1807 to comfort her twin daughters and other children under her care.

difficult to understand unless most people assumed that "cure" of any painful condition would be accompanied by relief from pain, thus minimizing any necessity for a painkiller per se.

Before elixirs like Winslow's, it was not uncommon for doctors to slit babies' gums open with a scalpel to "relieve" teething pain. Other common cures for various illnesses included leeches, bleeding and gargling mercury...by contrast, cures in a bottle seemed modern and painless.

Most mothers who dosed their babies with morphine didn't know what they were doing. Many of the children died but it's unknown just how many children Winslow's Syrup killed. Parents didn't know medication was dangerous and the deaths were often attributed to the underlying symptoms of teething and diarrhea.

Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, designed to pacify babies with teething and other problems, contained morphine sulfate as the active ingredient. While it relieved the baby's teething pains, it did so at the risk of addiction or a fatal overdose.

Although branded a "Baby Killer" by the American Medical Association, this nostrum would be sold until the 1930s

Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, an extremely popular dental nostrum, was intended to quiet a fretful child during a teething process. However, it contained generous levels of alcohol and morphine sulfate which could cause coma, addiction or death in an infant.

In 1845, druggists Jeremiah Curtis and Benjamin A. Perkins, of Bangor, Maine, partnered to manufacture this remedy. The story goes that Mrs. Charlotte N. Winslow, Curtis' mother-in-law, created the formula while she was a nurse caring for infants.

Mrs. Winslow's was denounced by the American Medical Association in 1911, but continued to be sold as late as 1930.

Manufacturers
Mrs. Charlotte Winslow. Lived in Maine. thought to have been a nurse midwife (may or may not be true). Devised the syrup for children in her care, including her own daughters. One of Mrs. Winslow's daughters, Luxy, married Jeremiah Curtis. He and his partner, Benjamin Perkins, began mass producing Winslow's wonder drug in their downtown storefront near the river in 1845. Charlotte Winslow is buried in Albion, Maine.

an 1867 pemphlet of recipes published by Curtis (son-in-law) and Brown of New York City claims a professional pedigree, noting that "she is a lady who, for upwards of thirty years, has untiringly devoted her time and talents as a Female Physician and Nurse, principally among children..(she) is becoming world renowned as a benefactor of her race; children certainly rise up and bless her..." It probably took a good deal of time for the children to shake off the effects of the morphine so that they could rise up to offer the alleged blessing to Mrs. W.

Mrs. Charlotte Noyes Winslow (1789-1850) formulated an opiate-laced syrup to soothe the restlessness of her simultaneously teething twin daughters in 1807. A younger sister of those twins would marry a druggist who, with a junior partner, would form "Curtis & Perkins," the firm that would market "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup" from Bangor and then to New York to North America and the British Commonwealth.

Jeremiah Curtis died March 24, 1883

Jeremiah Curtis, engaged in the drug business...business in New York...accumulated a large fortune.

Jeremiah Curtis died in Brookly, NY on Saturday last. He formerly resided in this city, but removed from here about thirty years ago. He commenced ini this city the manufacture of Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup.

Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup was one of the most successful and lethal potions on the market.

Curtis and Perkins moved their business to New York City in 1854. Curtis bought out Perkins in 1860 and by 1868 was selling 1.5 million bottles a year. In 1880, Curtis changed the operation's name to the Anglo-American Drug Company. By then, they were also manufacturing Winslow's in the United Kingdom and distributing it worldwide.

In the early 1850s as his business continued to prosper, Jeremiah Curtis moved his company and family to New York City.

In 1867 the three with the largest trade in Britain were Perry Davis's Pain Killer, Brown's Troches, or lozenges, and Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, popular because well laced with morphia to stupefy fractious infants. All three maintained a good sale throughout the century.

Claimed that the syrup had universal success in relieve pain and affecting cures.

Sales
one hundred thousand two-ounce bottles annually in New York one hundred thousand two-ounce bottles annually in San Francisco...containing about one hundred and eighty thousand grains of morphine, which are given annually to the babies of this state. No wonder that one-third of them die before they reach the age of two years.

Marketing
"there should be some power to stop the sale of a poison which is sold under the false pretense that it is perfectly safe."

"give rest to yourself and relief and health to your infants. A bottle cost just over a shilling (5p)

Claims: teething, dysentery, diarrhea, regulation of stomach and bowels, wind colic, soften gums, reduce inflammation and gives tone and energy to the whole system. Claimed to be pleasant to taste, presecription is one of the oldest used by the best female nurses and physicians in the United States. 25 cents per bottle.

Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup. This much advertised preparation is supplied by Curtis and Perkins, New York and London, at 1s 1/2d. per bottle, containing 1.5 fluid ounces. In a circular enclosed in the package, it is stated that: Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, for children teething, greatly facilitates the process of teething, by softening the gums, reducing all inflammation, - will allay ALL pain and spasmodic action, and is Sure to Regulate the Bowels.

"This valuable preparation is the prescription of one of the most experienced and skillful nurses in America, and had been used with never failing success, in thousands of cases.

The manufacturer removed the morphine, but continued to infer that its composition was always free from the drug.

A trade-mark gives a perpetual monopoly on a name, but places no restriction on the composition. Its object is merely identification and protection against imitation. Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup, for example, is a name protected by trademark, but while it originally contained morphine and alcohol, it now contains neither.

Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup contained opium, but it was promoted as a sedative for infants, not as an adult analgesic.

Clearly aimed only at parents of the very young

John Morgan Richards, ran a London branch of the New York wholesale medicine business, Demas Barnes & Co. In about 1875, he took over the medicine interests on his own account and combined them with other products (e.g. tobacco).

First marketed in 1849, Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup owed its success to an extensive advertising campaign and the presence of morphine sulfate in its formula. The proportion of narcotic was removed with the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs act but various estimates prior to 1906 state that the morphine levels were approximately 65mg per fluid ounce.

Visually their advertising was attractive and often present idyllic domestic images of mother and child.

In an 1868 court summary, Curtis reported selling more than 1.5 million bottles of the remedy annually.

Dosage
Children under one month old, 6-10 drops; three months old, half a teaspoon and upwards; six months old; one teaspoonful three to four times a day until free from pain. In dysentery repeat above dose every two hours, until the character of the disease is changed for the better.

The quantity used in the community is enormous; doubtless has killed hundreds of children, and would kill thousands, were it not that by beginning in very small doses and gradually increasing, a tolerance of the immediate poisonous effects is induced, although the miserable little victims of domestic drugging are reduced to puny and cachectic creatures that are carried off by the first disease that takes hold of them.

Testing and Labeling
Under the guidance of publisher Cyrus H.K. Curtis, The Ladies Home Journal began investigating patent medicines in 1892. The English Pharmacy Act made labeling mandatory and revealed that Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup contained morphine, a fact the manufacturers denied.

The Journal also did in Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup by purchasing a bottle in London, where labeling was mandatory under the English Pharmacy Act. Although the manufacturers denied the presence of morphine, the British label stated otherwise.

It was not until 1906 that manufacturers were required to list product ingredients. Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

The Harrison Act of 1914 regulated opiates. Winslow's dropped the morphine from its formula and the word "soothing" from its advertising. It remained on store shelves into the 1930s.

opiates came under federal control in 1914

MWSS was withdrawn from sale in the UK in 1930.

The Journal of American Medical Association added Winslow's its list of "baby killer" patent medicines.

The Pharmaceutical Society and Council of Society worked jointly to institute labeling requirements on Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup which included the word "poison" in red letters.

...the presence of morphine to the extent of about 0.08 grain per bottle was provided in court cases where unqualified persons were prosecuted for selling the syrup.

The British Pharmacy Act of 1869 forced the manufacturer to remove the comment "this preparation contains, among other valuable ingredients, a small amount of morphine" without changing its contents. Eventually (the 1890s), the morphine was removed, replaced by a low dose of potassium bromide.

Through the 1800s ingredients did not have to be listed on the labels, and consumers were often unaware of the contents of the remedies they purchased.

Response to Criticism
In November 1869, The California Medical Gazette published a case study of a child poisoned by Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup and revelation of the syrup's ingredients. The proprietors wrote to the Gazette saying that the analysis was "false in every particular." The editors stood by the original article and invited the proprietors to submit an analysis of a competent chemist of their choosing, promising to "give it space in the Gazette as cheerfully as we gave space to the analysis in question."

Dr. A.B. Hirsh reported to the Philadelphia County Medical School the case of a boy, aged 20 months, who was poisoned by "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup." He was given four doses of less than half a teaspoonful in fourteen hours.

Ingredients
Morphia with essence of anise and syrup of balsam of tolu.

sulphate of morphia, a derivative of papavar somniferum (Opium Poppy)

The doctor took the bottle and had some of the syrup analyzed by a skillful chemist, and the analysis showed that each ounce of the stuff contained nearly one grain of morphine.

morphine and other opium alkaloids

In 1877 MWSS had opium for teething children.

8 parts white simple syrup mixed with 1 part of a tincture made by extracting 10 parts of freshly crushed fennel seed and part of oil of fennel with 60 percent of spirits. (Dr. Hager).

The syrup was a straw color, and flavored with aniseed. Analysis showed it to contain, in 100 parts by measure: Potassium bromide (2.0 parts), Alchohol (4.3 parts by measure), Essential Oil (anise) about 0.1 part; sugar 56.5 parts. Emodin was present in small quantity. No alkaloid was present. The syrup's active and addictive ingredient was morphine, suspended in a tincture of alcohol. Each fluid ounce contained 65 mg of the powerful opiate...assuming parents kept to the guidelines, some toddlers were getting 250mg of morphine in 24 hours.

Legislation and then litigation would reduce morphine content in the 1830s to 26mg (1911) and then 0mg (1915).

Because the two primary ingredients in Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup were morphine and alcohol it is not surprising that the syrup relieved pain and diarrhea (a common side effect of all opiods is constipation).

Cases of Illness or Death

 * A 20 month old child. Dosage: less than a half teaspoon four times in 14 hours. Survived with vigorous anti-narcotic treatment by Dr. A.B. Hirsh.(1884).
 * An infant in a dying condition fed no medicine but this "soothing syrup." Outcome unknown.(1870).
 * A six month old infant in a dying condition. Dosage: one teaspoonful two times in 10 hours. (1870)
 * An unspecified person in Providence, Rhode Island. Result: death.(1873)
 * A ten month old child. Dosage: one teaspoonful. Result: death.(1910)
 * Twin babies in Seattle, Washington found dead in their strollers after being fed the syrup.
 * Wyoming infant. Dosage: one teaspoon. Result: difficulty breathing, then death.
 * Three and a half month old in Hamilton, Ohio. Dr. G.M. Cummins. Resulted in death. (1906)
 * A ten month old child in South St. Paul, Minnesota. Dr. J.E. Campbell. Resulted in death. (1907)
 * An eighteen month old child in Mankato, Mississippi. Dr. J.M. Edwards. Resulted in death. (1907)

Popular Culture

 * "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup" by Edward Elgar. Adagio Cantabile, a short piece for wind instruments (1879)
 * "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup" by Karl P. Harrington. "Cradle song" for male voices.
 * "The Shades of Night Were Falling Fast" by A.E. Housman. Comic poem.
 * "Tom Joad" by Woody Guthrie. 1940 Dustbowl Ballad. Grandpa Joad is given soothing syrup before he dies.