This thread reminds me of the book George's Marvellous Medicine, which is a good montage of household products from the time, as every ingredient he puts into the medicine is listed in detail.
"He would go first to the bathroom. There are always lots of funny things in a bathroom. But he didn't go near the medicine cabinet, it was the only thing in the entire house he had been forbidden to touch. He had made solemn promises to his parents about this, and he wasn't going to break them. There were things in there, they had told him, that could actually kill a person, and while wanted to give Grandma a pretty fiery mouthful, he didn't really want a dead body on his hands."
And then what does he put in? Liquid paraffin!
He hadn't the slightest idea what it did to you, but he put it in anyway. And he puts in animal pills, because nobody has ever told him he mustn't touch them.