Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup

As you can see this ad does not seem that bad until you find out the actual ingredients in this soothing syrup. The two main ingredients in the soothing syrup was morphine and alcohol.   Mrs. Winslow Soothing syrup claimed to help babies stop teething, soften their gums, and stop diarrhea. But the fact is it caused babies to do into a drug overdose more often then not. Mrs. Winslow Soothing Syrup was created by a nurse named Charlotte N. Winslow in 1835 when she was caring for infants. Her son in law Jeremiah Curtis and a business partner Benjamin A. Perkins decided to start selling this syrup by advertising printed ads with depictions of a mother and child. These ads worked because they sold over 1.5 million bottles. The Prue Food and Drug Act of 1906 finally began to stop the production of the soothing syrup but some sources say that some bottles were still being sold to the public in the late 1930’s.

The reason why people were buying these soothing syrup with such harmful ingredients inside of them was the fact that the bottles didn’t have to say what ingredients were inside. Most bottles didn’t have the ingredients listed so many people didn’t know how harmful the syrup actually was.

If you read the ad carefully can can see that they say that this syrup is absolutely harmless. Which is a complete lie because newspaper articles during the time reported many infant deaths due to this product.

As you can see in the commercial created by Jeremiah Curtis the mother called a doctor to come and check on her teething child. The doctor just simply gives her child the soothing syrup and leaves. After the soothing syrup effects wear off the mother doesn’t want to give her child the syrup again but she does due to the desperation. Most mothers was against giving the syrup to their children but due to the ads and commercial they were influenced into buying this product.