text: History Pacifiers were mentioned for the first time in medical literature in 1473, being described by German physician Bartholomäus Metlinger in his book , in later editions retitled  ("Caring For Young Children").
  In England in the 17th–19th centuries, a coral was a teething toy made of coral, ivory or bone, often mounted in silver as the handle of a rattle. A museum curator has suggested that these substances were used as "sympathetic magic" and that the animal bone could symbolize animal strength to help the child cope with pain.
  Pacifiers were a development of hard teething rings, but they were also a substitute for the softer sugar tits, sugar-teats, or sugar-rags which had been in use in 19th century America. A writer in 1873 described a "sugar-teat" made from "a small piece of old linen" with a "spoonful of rather sandy sugar in the center of it", "gathered ... up into a little ball" with a thread tied tightly around it. Rags with foodstuffs tied inside were also given to babies in many parts of Northern Europe and elsewhere. In some places a lump of meat or fat was tied in cloth, and sometimes the rag was moistened with brandy. German-speaking areas might use , cloth wrapped around sweetened bread or poppy-seeds.
  A Madonna and child painted by Dürer in 1506 shows one of these tied-cloth "pacifiers" in the baby's hand.