1914 – Birth of Álvaro Justino Matias in Vale da Mula, village of the municipality of Almeida, district of Guarda.
1930 – With only 16 years of age, Álvaro Matias left his homeland and heads to Lisbon, looking for opportunities that would allow him to have a better life.
1939 – While working as an apprentice in a grocery store in Rua da Prata, downtown Lisbon, he meets Dr. Bayard, a French doctor exiled in Portugal due to World War II. The apprentice and the doctor become close friends. Álvaro Matias helps the Bayard family as a tourist guide and, in return, the doctor gave him French lessons. During the stay of Dr. Bayard in Portugal, Álvaro Matias even helps him to get the essential goods, like bread, butter and rice.
1944 – At the end of World War II, Dr. Bayard and his family returned to France. As a thank you, they give Álvaro Matias a metal can with a recipe for some medicinal drops inside, who had great success in his country to cure the cough and throat irritations.
1949 – Álvaro Matias starts producing these cough drops at home, with the help of his family. On the packaging, Dr. Bayard’s signature and drawing of a person coughing are true to the papers left by the French doctor.
1969 – Twenty years after the first homemade productions, Álvaro Matias buys the first industrial machines and establishes the Dr. Bayard’s Cough Drops Factory on a small street in Amadora.
2007 – Álvaro Matias’ children inherit the position of their parents, and José António Matias takes over the management of Dr. Bayard’s, with the collaboration of his children and niece, maintaining the family tradition, thus making the business last, just like the cough drops, “from generation to generation”.
2016 – Dr. Bayard launches the online store with worldwide deliveries.