Patent medicine the patent medicines, some of their makers began replacing the opium tincture laudanum with acetanilide, a particularly toxic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug with analgesic as well as antipyretic properties that had been introduced into medical practice under the name "Antifebrin" by A. Cahn and P. Hepp in 1886. But this ingredient change probably killed more of the nostrum's users than the original narcotics did, since acetanilide not only caused an alarming cyanosis due to methemoglobinemia but was later discovered to cause liver and kidney damage. The occasional reports of acetanilide-induced cyanosis prompted the search for supposedly less toxic aniline derivatives, such
Laudanum imaginable: mercury, hashish, cayenne pepper, ether, chloroform, belladonna, whiskey, wine and brandy." As one researcher has noted: "To understand the popularity of a medicine that eased -- even if only temporarily -- coughing, diarrhoea and pain, one only has to consider the living conditions at the time". In the 1850s, "cholera and dysentery regularly ripped through communities, its victims often dying from debilitating diarrhoea", and dropsy, consumption, ague and rheumatism were all too common. By the 19th century, laudanum was used in many patent medicines to "relieve pain ... to produce sleep ... to allay irritation ... to check excessive