Paregoric, or camphorated tincture of opium, also known as tinctura opii camphorata, is a traditional patent medicine known for its antidiarrheal, antitussive, and analgesic properties.
According to Goodman and Gilman's 1965 edition, "Paregoric is a 4% opium tincture in which there is also benzoic acid, camphor, and anise oil. ... Paregoric by tradition is used especially for children."
The term "paregoric" has also been used for boiled sweets which contained the substance, in particular the Army & Navy brand.
Properties
In 1944, two clinicians who evaluated the expectorant action of paregoric, concluded:
The survival of paregoric through the centuries, and particularly through recent critical decades, is probably due to keen clinical observation and stubborn adherence to the clinical deduction that paregoric is useful in certain types of cough.
History
In the very early 18th century, Jakob Le Mort (1650–1718), a professor of chemistry at Leiden University, prepared an elixir for asthma and called it "paregoric". The word "paregoric" comes from the Greek word "paregoricon" which was originally applied to oratory – to speak, but, more accurately, talk over, soothe, and finally came to have the same meaning as "anodyne".
Le Mort's elixir, consisting of "honey, licorice, flowers of Benjamin, and opium, camphor, oil of aniseed, salt of tartar and spirit of wine," was listed as "Elixir Asthmaticum" in the London Pharmacopoeia of 1721. Its ingredients were assembled according to the humoral theory of the time. Paregoric was used in various formulations for hundreds of years.
Paregoric was a household remedy in the 18th and 19th centuries when it was widely used to control diarrhea in adults and children, as an expectorant and cough medicine, to calm fretful children, and to rub on the gums to counteract the pain from teething.
A formula for paregoric from Dr. Chase's Recipes (1865):
The Medical Companion, Or Family Physician, a book from 1827, gave the following recipe:
Use during the twentieth century
During the twentieth century its use declined as governments regulated its ingredients (opium is a controlled substance in many countries.)
Beginning in late 2011, there was a period in which paregoric was not being manufactured in the United States. , however, the manufacture of paregoric had resumed.
Regulation
The early twentieth century brought increased regulation of all manner of narcotics, including paregoric, as the addictive properties of opium became more widely understood, and "patent medicines came under fire largely because of their mysterious compositions". In the United States, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 required that certain specified drugs, including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, morphine, and cannabis, be accurately labeled with contents and dosage. Previously many drugs had been sold as patent medicines with secret ingredients or misleading labels. Cocaine, heroin, cannabis, and other such drugs continued to be legally available without prescription as long as they were labeled. It is estimated that sale of patent medicines containing opiates decreased by 33% after labeling was mandated. In 1906 in Britain and in 1908 in Canada "laws requiring disclosure of ingredients and limitation of narcotic content were instituted".
The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 restricted the manufacture and distribution of opiates, including laudanum, and coca derivatives in the United States; this was followed by France's Loi des stupefiants in 1916, and Britain's Dangerous Drugs Act in 1920.
In the United States, the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 regulated "opium or coca leaves, or any compound, manufacture, salt, derivative or preparation thereof", but not some medical products containing relatively low concentrations of these substances. Paregoric was classified as an "Exempt Narcotic", as were other medical products containing small amounts of opium or their derivatives.