Medications come in an array of shapes and sizes. This variety helps visually impaired folks distinguish one prescription from another, and also aids caregivers who regularly administer handfuls of the same pills to patients. However, that same rainbow of colors is also a tantalizing temptation to toddlers, and emergency rooms of the 1950s and 60s had a steady influx of tiny patients who thought they were eating candy.
Any parent knows that no matter how high out of reach you store medications, any child with even the most limited mobility can some how manage to find whatever you least want them to. Canadian pediatrician Henri Breault experimented with several types of child-resistant caps and in 1967 he patented what he felt was the best design, the “palm and turn.” The province of Ontario was the first to adapt the new cap on all medications, and just one year later pediatric poisoning cases had dropped an amazing 91 percent. The Poison Prevention Packaging Act was adopted in the United States in 1970, and took effect in 1972; the first aspirin bottles with the new caps debuted in August that year.
Thanks to MentalFloss
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