I came across this advert in the Caledonian Mercury of the 18th January 1750:
Godfrey’s Cordial was a patent medicine, containing laudanum (tincture of opium) in a sweet syrup. The original formula was named after apothecary Thomas Godfrey of Hunsdon in Hertfordshire. After his death in 1721, without leaving a clear heir to his work, others claimed to have the formula and it was mass-produced across England.
Godfrey’s cordial contained about 11⁄4 grain of opium per ounce apothecaries’ system and was readily available without prescription in England and North America. In 1857, with ill-advised opioid usage reaching alarming levels, a parliamentary bill was put forward which classified opium and its derivatives as poisons. This was intended to severely restrict the sale of such compounds, but it failed to pass through parliament, after being subject to intensive lobbying by trading chemists. It was also widely criticised as an impractical solution from an overall perspective.
Usage of Godfrey’s Cordial gradually declined post-1890 as several court rulings held that the act applied equally to patent medicines.
References:
[1] Old English Patent Medicines in America – George B. Griffenhagen and James Harvey Young
[2] Godfrey’s Cordial – wikipedia