John Brown, M.D. (1810-1882), remarkable for his close and accurate clinical observations, was the author of a three-volume collection of essays entitled Horae Subsecivae (i.e."leisure hours"). Many consider these essays to be among the greatest of humanistic essays on medicine published during the 19th century.Brown in his warning below stressed the terrible consequences of dosing children with laudanum.There is another practice which I must notice, and that is giving children laudanum to make them sleep, and keep them quiet, and for coughs and windy pains. Now, this is a most dangerous thing. I have often been called in to see children who were dying, and who did die, from laudanum given in this way. I have known four drops kill a child a month old; and ten drops one a year old. The best rule, and one you should stick to, as under God's eye as well as the law's, is never to give laudanum without a doctor's line or order. (Brown was directing his comments to parents).
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