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The "Murder bottles" were baby feeding bottles with names like ‘Mummies Darling’, ‘The Princess’, ‘Little Cherub’ or ‘The Alexandria’ that gave the bottles an air of quality and safety. (+)
They were made from glass or even earthenware with a rubber tube running from the nipple to the bottom of the bottle, a perfect device to breed bacteria. That's why over time these baby feeders became more widely known by names such as ‘The Killer’ or ‘The Murderer”. (+)
It also didn't help that women at the time, in an effort to make household chores easier, turned to the advice of Mrs. Beeton. Isabella Beeton, in her popular book, Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management (1861) (+)
a go-to reference guide on how to run a household, doled out advice on cooking, hiring and firing household staff, and child rearing. She advised that it was not necessary to wash the nipple for two or three weeks, making the bottles the perfect incubators for deadly bacteria(+)
Although doctors condemned the bottles and infant mortality rates of the time were shocking – only two out of ten infants lived to their second birthday – parents continued to buy and use them.
