A hundred years ago, when I was five and my sister was a teething baby, my mother had gel-filled toys specifically designed to be bitten by a teething baby. She'd keep them in the refrigerator or possibly the freezer, hard to remember, and that seemed to help Molly. No choking hazard, either.

Perhaps they are out of favor for some other hazardous reason, though.

My mother also reminisces about some kind of ointment that she rubbed on her children's gums - OraGel, maybe? It numbs them completely for about 30 seconds, which my mother said was long enough to let an exhausted baby fall asleep.