were quick to ride the patent-medicine bandwagon, offering their own similar brews at a lower price, undercutting the cost of tax and advertising. Many were harmless, coloured, sugar syrups but, needless to say, a good many contained more toxic substances such as strychnine, prussic acid, aconite and opium.
Doverâs Powder was famous as a patent medicine but the most famous â which survives to the present day, although it no longer contains the drug in anything like the quantity it did â was Dr J. Collis Browneâs Chlorodyne. It was invented as a cholera remedy by an Indian army doctor who sold the formula to a pharmaceutical manufacturer. It was marketed as a cure for a wide range of common ailments but it is best known today as a cure for diarrhoea. The original contained 2 grains of morphine (as hydrochlorate of morphia) per fluid ounce added to chloroform and tincture of cannabis: the modern version, now called J. Collis Browneâs Mixture, consists of 1 milligram of morphine anhydrous in every 5 millilitre dose with peppermint oil in a base of ethanol and caramel which gives it an authentic opium-brown colouring. Needless to say, chlorodyne produced addicts and it was not unknown as a vehicle for suicide, murder and accidental lethal overdose. Despite its risks, chlorodyne and similar medicines were a godsend. In Britain alone, they saved countless adults and children from death by dysentery and cholera, diseases which were inevitable in the crowded, unsanitary cities where food was contaminated and sewers at best rudimentary.
Yet opium did more than save lives: it provided an escape from the miseries and vicissitudes of working-class life. Men reverted to it to calm their fears of insecurity and poverty, to kill memories of long hours at the loom, the coal face or the plough. Women took it to numb the grinding poverty in which they lived and worked, struggling to raise a family and feed a husband.
People were introduced to opium quite literally as soon as they left their motherâs breast, and possibly before.
Although there were a large number of baby-calming liquids on the market â including home-made recipes such as poppy-head tea â the most famous of all was Godfreyâs Cordial, a soothing syrup for babies which reduced colic and consisted of tincture of opium in a thick sugar syrup to disguise the bitter taste. Sales were astronomical. In 1808, a Nottingham chemist reported selling 600 pints a year whilst, in Coventry in 1862, it was estimated 12,000 doses were given a week. In Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, a chemist claimed to sell 25½ gallons a year to a population of 6000 â and he was not the townâs sole chemist.
The âcomfortâ, as Godfreyâs Cordial was colloquially known, had its competitors, the main ones being Mrs Winslowâs Soothing Syrup â a popular sedative for babies throughout Europe and America which contained up to 1 grain of morphine per fluid ounce â Streetâs Infantsâ Quietness and Atkinsonâs Infantsâ Preservative.
Victorian baby preparations were sold to all classes, although they were primarily bought by the poor. Not only mothers purchased them for their fractious offspring. Baby-minders bought them in large quantities.
Wages amongst lower-class workers were low and both parents frequently worked at menial or physically demanding jobs for long periods. Babies, an inevitable product of poverty, were a hindrance. Infanticide was not uncommon but most infants, their mothers employed as domestic servants, in factories or in agricultural gangs, ended up in the hands of child-minders who charged about 3s a week (20 per cent of an average wage) to look after a child. The minders were most often in control of up to a dozen babies and were not only notoriously lax but they might also have had a second home job as well â say as a laundry-woman. To keep their charges quiet, they fed them soothing syrups:
Doverâs Powder was famous as a patent medicine but the most famous â which survives to the present day, although it no longer contains the drug in anything like the quantity it did â was Dr J. Collis Browneâs Chlorodyne. It was invented as a cholera remedy by an Indian army doctor who sold the formula to a pharmaceutical manufacturer. It was marketed as a cure for a wide range of common ailments but it is best known today as a cure for diarrhoea. The original contained 2 grains of morphine (as hydrochlorate of morphia) per fluid ounce added to chloroform and tincture of cannabis: the modern version, now called J. Collis Browneâs Mixture, consists of 1 milligram of morphine anhydrous in every 5 millilitre dose with peppermint oil in a base of ethanol and caramel which gives it an authentic opium-brown colouring. Needless to say, chlorodyne produced addicts and it was not unknown as a vehicle for suicide, murder and accidental lethal overdose. Despite its risks, chlorodyne and similar medicines were a godsend. In Britain alone, they saved countless adults and children from death by dysentery and cholera, diseases which were inevitable in the crowded, unsanitary cities where food was contaminated and sewers at best rudimentary.
Yet opium did more than save lives: it provided an escape from the miseries and vicissitudes of working-class life. Men reverted to it to calm their fears of insecurity and poverty, to kill memories of long hours at the loom, the coal face or the plough. Women took it to numb the grinding poverty in which they lived and worked, struggling to raise a family and feed a husband.
People were introduced to opium quite literally as soon as they left their motherâs breast, and possibly before.
Although there were a large number of baby-calming liquids on the market â including home-made recipes such as poppy-head tea â the most famous of all was Godfreyâs Cordial, a soothing syrup for babies which reduced colic and consisted of tincture of opium in a thick sugar syrup to disguise the bitter taste. Sales were astronomical. In 1808, a Nottingham chemist reported selling 600 pints a year whilst, in Coventry in 1862, it was estimated 12,000 doses were given a week. In Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, a chemist claimed to sell 25½ gallons a year to a population of 6000 â and he was not the townâs sole chemist.
The âcomfortâ, as Godfreyâs Cordial was colloquially known, had its competitors, the main ones being Mrs Winslowâs Soothing Syrup â a popular sedative for babies throughout Europe and America which contained up to 1 grain of morphine per fluid ounce â Streetâs Infantsâ Quietness and Atkinsonâs Infantsâ Preservative.
Victorian baby preparations were sold to all classes, although they were primarily bought by the poor. Not only mothers purchased them for their fractious offspring. Baby-minders bought them in large quantities.
Wages amongst lower-class workers were low and both parents frequently worked at menial or physically demanding jobs for long periods. Babies, an inevitable product of poverty, were a hindrance. Infanticide was not uncommon but most infants, their mothers employed as domestic servants, in factories or in agricultural gangs, ended up in the hands of child-minders who charged about 3s a week (20 per cent of an average wage) to look after a child. The minders were most often in control of up to a dozen babies and were not only notoriously lax but they might also have had a second home job as well â say as a laundry-woman. To keep their charges quiet, they fed them soothing syrups:
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