Licorice-flavored Morphine for Babies: Winchell's Teething Syrup.

The Orcutt-Killick Lithographing Company created this advertising card image (above) for another Chicago firm, Emmert Proprietary Company (EPC), the makers of Winchell’s Teething Syrup. Now imagine yourself back in the 1890s, startled awake in the middle of the night by your inconsolably crying infant. Bespectacled and wearing your collared nightshirt, stockings, and slippers, you reach for this trusty remedy. Fortunately for you, your baby likes the taste of Winchell’s, which combines oils of fennel and anise to flavor its sugary syrup like licorice. Unfortunately for your baby, Winchell’s also contains morphine, which may dull teething pain but may also terminally sedate the wee one. And unfortunately for EPC, their teething syrup would be declared “misbranded” in 1910 after it was falsely advertised as a cure for diarrhea, dysentery, and diphtheria. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc.) George S. Bause, M.D., M.P.H., Honorary Curator, ASA’s Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, Illinois, and Clinical Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. [email protected]. 123