Heroin As Cough Medicine

Heroin, chemically known as diacetylmorphine, was once prescribed to treat common ailments such as coughs, colds and pain--the drug was manufactured for such treatment by Bayer starting in 1898, according to BBC News. 

Heroin is processed from morphine, a naturally occurring opiate extracted from the seedpod of certain varieties of poppy plants. The opium poppy has been cultivated for more than five thousand years for a variety of medicinal uses.

Heroin was first synthesized from morphine in 1874. From 1898 through to 1910, Bayer, the German pharmaceutical company, marketed it under the trademark name Heroin as a cough suppressant and as a non-addictive morphine substitute (until it was discovered that it rapidly metabolizes into morphine). One year after beginning sales, Bayer exported heroin to 23 countries.