Dalby's Carminative was one of the two most widely used patent medicines given to babies and children at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. Together with its rival, Godfrey's Cordial, they were known as "mother's friends" and were used (often against a doctor's advice) for everything from colic and coughs to typhoid.

A carminative is a drug that relieves gas from the digestive tract, flatulence and colic in infants. The formula claimed to aid “infants afflicted with wind, watery gripes, fluxes and other disorders of the stomach and bowels”. The main active ingredient in both formulas was opium. There are stories of nurses who overdosed the babies in their care to keep them quiet and no bother, and babies did die from time to time. Today, the medicine is mostly known by collectors of old glass bottles.