On the outer package was to be read:
Congreve’s Balsamic Elixir. Has had a World-wide Reputation for 80 years as the Best Remedy for Consumption, also for Asthma, Chronic Bronchitis, Coughs, Colds, and Whooping cough. Safe and Effective. Free from any poison.
The following extracts are from a circular enclosed with the bottle:
In the most obstinate attacks of Asthma, which have threatened speedy suffocation, when the sufferer, harassed by excessive coughing, has laboured dreadfully for breath, with an acuteness of agony not to be described, this Balsam has restored the patient to health, after the medical practitioner had abandoned the usual means in despair.
In Pulmonary Consumption, the best remedy is this Balsamic Elixir, as most unquestionable Testimonials prove. It has been successfully prescribed in Consumptive cases regarded as hopeless by the first physicians.
Correspondence. Advice by letter from time to time will be given to any patient whilst continuing Mr. Congreve’s Treatment, provided that the 22s. or 11s. bottles of Elixir are obtained direct from [the address given by the vendor in his advertisements] during the period of correspondence.
The directions were:
For adults.—Take a teaspoonful, alone or mixed with honey or lump sugar, three or four times a day, as the urgency of the case requires. Children from 8 to 15 years may take two-thirds of a teaspoonful; from 5 to 8 years, half a teaspoonful; from 2 to 5 years, twenty drops; at six months, ten drops; younger infants from four to six drops.
The “elixir” was a bright red liquid; analysis showed it to contain 28·5 per cent. by volume of alcohol, and 2·6 per cent. of total solids; the latter consisted of resinous constituents (about 0·5 per cent.), sugar (about 1 per cent.), a little tannin, colouring matter (apparently cochineal), and extractive. Alkaloid was present only to the extent of a trace, under 0·001 per cent.; the extractive showed no characters by which its source could be determined; the resinous material was of an aromatic nature similar to the resins of benzoin, storax, tolu, or balsam of Peru, and appeared to be derived from a mixture of two or more of these. No other active ingredients were found to be present.