“Probably no remedy is so uniformly successful in the prevention of threatened miscarriage as ALETRIS CORDIAL Rio.”
“HABITUAL MISCARRIAGE can be effectually overcome by the systematic use of Aletris Cordial Rio.”
“... regulates the local circulation and imparts normal tone and strength to the uterine muscle.”
“The use of Aletris Cordial Rio throughout pregnancy goes far to assure normal, uncomplicated labor.”
Such claims as these, when made for a mixture containing no therapeutically active constituent except alcohol, are absolutely preposterous. It should be noted that the declared alcohol content of Aletris Cordial is much higher than that of the strongest wines, and, in the light of medical experience, quite high enough to promote the formation of the alcohol habit in a steady user. The following recommendation, taken from the company’s “Budding into Womanhood” circular, therefore, is outrageous:
“Many medical practitioners recommend to mothers the use of Aletris Cordial Rio for their growing daughters, ranging in age from twelve to eighteen years....”
It is to be hoped that no medical practitioner is so heedless of consequences as to prescribe for adolescent girls a worthless nostrum capable of creating a craving for alcohol. The temperance societies might with profit take steps to inform laymen, especially women, concerning the worthlessness of this nostrum, the risk involved in taking it, and the outrageous character of the recommendations made for it by the manufacturers.
Kennedy’s Pinus Canadensis, Light and Dark
(Abican and Darpin)
Kennedy’s Pinus Canadensis, Light (recently renamed “Abican”) and Dark (renamed “Darpin”) are also exploited by the Rio Chemical Company. Although they have been on the market some thirty or forty years they appear to have achieved no marked degree of commercial success. Yet they have been imitated by most of the pharmaceutic houses. They are of interest chiefly through the barefaced fraud involved in their exploitation.