s swellings,
inflammations, fresh wounds, earaches, shortnesses of breath, and
ulcers.

Dalby's Carminative was merely misbranded, but that was bad enough. Its
label suggested that it be used especially "For Infants Afflicted With
Wind, Watery Gripes, Fluxes and Other Disorders of the Stomach and
Bowels," although it would aid adults as well. The impression that this
remedy was capable of curing such afflictions, the government charged,
was false and fraudulent. Moreover, since the Carminative contained
opium, it was not a safe medicine when given according to the dosage
directions in a circular accompanying the bottle. For these and several
other violations of the law, the defending company, which did not
contest the case, was fined a hundred dollars.

Throughout the 19th century, occasional criticism of the old English
patent medicines had been made in the lay press. One novel[121]
describes a physician who comments on the use of Dalby's Carminative
for babies: "Don't, for pity's sake, vitiate and torment your poor
little angel's stomach, so new to the atrocities of this world, with
drugs. These mixers of baby medicines ought to be fed nothing but their
own nostrums. That would put a stop to their inventions of the
adversary."

[121] John William De Forest, _Miss Ravenel's conversion from
secession to loyalty_, New York, 1867.

Opium had been lauded in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the old
English proprietaries began, as a superior cordial which could moderate
most illnesses and even cure some. "Medicine would be a one-armed man
if it did not possess this remedy." So had stated the noted English
physician, Thomas Sydenham.[122] But the 20th century had grown to fear
this powerful narcotic, especially in remedies for children. This point
of view, illustrated in the governmental action concerning Dalby's
Carminative, was also reflected in medical comment about Godfrey's
Cordial. During 1912, a Missouri physician described the death of a
baby who had been given this medicine for a week.[123] The symptoms
were those of opium poisoning. Deploring the naming of this "dangerous
mixture" a "cordial," since the average person thought of a cordial as
beneficial, the doctor hoped that the formula might be omitted from the
next edition of the _National formulary_. This did not happen, for the
recipe hung on until 1926. The Harrison Narcotic Act, enacted in 1914
as a Federal measure to restrict the distributio