The S. E. Massengill Company made the 1937 elixir sulfanilamide that caused fatal diethylene glycol poisoning and helped trigger a major U.S. drug-safety law.
The company marketed sulfanilamide as a liquid medicine for children and adults. Its chief chemist used diethylene glycol as the solvent, but the mixture was not tested for toxicity before distribution. More than 100 people died, many of them children.
The disaster exposed limits in the 1906 law: regulators could act against misbranding, but they had little power to demand proof that a new drug was safe. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 strengthened premarket safety requirements.
A common mix-up is calling this a recall under modern rules. The company withdrew the product after the deaths became known, but the episode is chiefly remembered as the event that led to stronger federal drug regulation.