Editing Pacifier (section)

==History==
[[Image:Baby Comforter 1900.jpg|thumb|150px|left|Baby comforter design, 1900]]

In England in the 17th–19th centuries, a "coral" was a teething toy made of coral, ivory or bone, often mounted in silver as the handle of a rattle.<ref>
''[[OED]]''; [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roco/hod_47.70.htm Examples from the Metropolitan]
</ref>{{verification failed|date=March 2023}} A museum curator{{who?|date=March 2023}} has suggested that these substances were used as "sympathetic magic"<ref>[http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/collections/childcare/rattle/index.html Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood]. Vam.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2013-04-14.</ref>{{verification failed|date=March 2023}} and that the animal bone could symbolize animal strength to help the child cope with pain.

Pacifiers were a development of hard teething rings, but they were also a substitute for the softer ''[[sugar tit]]s'', ''sugar-teats'', or ''sugar-rags''<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary''
</ref> which had been in use in 19th century America. A writer in 1873 described a "sugar-teat" made from "a small piece of old linen" with a "spoonful of rather sandy sugar in the center of it", "gathered ... up into a little ball" with a thread tied tightly around it.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jamieson |first=Cecilia Viets |year=1873 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_37076/page/n18/mode/1up |title=Ropes of Sand |chapter=Chapter 2: Top's Baby |page=11 |via=Internet Archive |access-date=2023-03-21}}</ref> Rags with foodstuffs tied inside were also given to babies in many parts of Northern Europe and elsewhere. In some places a lump of meat or fat was tied in cloth, and sometimes the rag was moistened with brandy. German-speaking areas might use {{lang|la|Lutschbeutel}}, cloth wrapped around sweetened bread or poppy-seeds.

[[File:Madonna with the Siskin by Albrecht Dürer - Gemäldegalerie - Berlin - Germany 2017.jpg|thumb|300px|upright=1.2|[[Albrecht Dürer]], ''Madonna with the Siskin'', 1506]]
[[Image:Madonna and Siskin detail.jpg|thumb|300px|upright=1.2|Albrecht Dürer, ''Madonna with the Siskin'' detail, 1506]]
A [[Madonna (art)|Madonna]] and child painted by [[Dürer]] in 1506<ref>[http://www.wga.hu/html/d/durer/1/05/06siski.html "Madonna and Siskin"]. ''Web Gallery of Art''. Retrieved 21 March 2023.</ref> shows one of these tied-cloth "pacifiers" in the baby's hand.

Pacifiers were settling into their modern form around 1900 when the first teat, shield and handle design was patented in the US as a "baby comforter" by [[Manhattan]] pharmacist Christian W. Meinecke.<ref>
[http://www.uspto.gov/main/search.html Design Patent number D33,212], C. W. Meinecke, September 18, 1900</ref>  Rubber had been used in flexible teethers sold as "elastic gum rings" for British babies in the mid-19th century,<ref name=r1>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060202134628/http://www.babybottle-museum.co.uk/dummies%20breast%20sheilds.htm "The history of the feeding bottle"]. Baby Bottle Museum.</ref> and also used for feeding-bottle teats. In 1902, [[Sears|Sears, Roebuck & Co.]] advertised a "new style rubber teething ring, with one hard and one soft nipple".<ref name=r1/> In 1909, someone calling herself "Auntie Pacifier" wrote to the ''New York Times'' to warn of the "menace to health" (she meant dental health) of "the persistent, and, among poorer classes, the universal sucking of a rubber nipple sold as a 'pacifier{{'"}}.<ref>Auntie Pacifier (July 2, 1909) 
[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9900E6D61E31E733A25751C0A9619C946897D6CF "The 'Pacifier' a Menace to Health"]. ''The New York Times''.</ref> In England too, dummies were seen as something the poorer classes would use, and associated with poor hygiene. In 1914, a [[London]] doctor complained about "the dummy teat": "If it falls on the floor it is rubbed momentarily on the mother's blouse or apron, lipped by the mother and replaced in the baby's mouth."<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://rcnarchive.rcn.org.uk/data/VOLUME055-1915/page123-volume55-07thaugust1915.pdf |title=The Dummy Teat |journal=The British Journal of Nursing Supplement: The Midwife |date=7 August 1915 |page=123}}</ref>

Early pacifiers were manufactured with a choice of black, maroon or white rubber, though the white rubber of the day contained a certain amount of lead. ''Binky'' (with a ''y'') was first used in about 1935 as a trademarked brand name for pacifiers and other baby products manufactured by the Binky Baby Products Company of New York. The brand trademark is owned by [[Playtex]] in the U.S. (and other countries).<ref>[http://www.uspto.gov/main/search.html According to trademark registration documents 1948]. Uspto.gov. Retrieved on 2013-04-14.</ref>{{nonspecific|date=March 2023}}