Bayer sold heroin for children's coughs 🧪

The same company that makes your aspirin once trademarked heroin.

In 1898, Bayer AG launched Heroin as a brand name — sold over the counter, advertised in family magazines, described in its own promotional literature as "non-habit forming." It was marketed specifically for coughs, bronchitis, and throat ailments. Doctors prescribed it to children.

The product ran for over a decade before the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 began closing the window.

What strikes hardest isn't the product itself. It's the confidence of the typography — the sober pharmaceutical serif, the respectable cross emblem, the reassuring copy. The ad doesn't read like a mistake. It reads like a Tuesday.

Swipe to see the decade context and the one sentence that explains why you'll never see this again.

#advertisinghistory #vintageads #darkhistory #bayer #1900s #pharmahistory #periodprint #designhistory