In the 1920s, the Republic underwent several structural changes as a result of epidemic diseases and adaptation to the new urban way of life. In Rio de Janeiro, as the country s capital, the changes were more pronounced and very duly recorded in illustrated magazines. In these records, the texts, illustrations and photographs demonstrate that, if on the one hand the new customs stimulates sociability, providing the female presence in public spaces and certais freedoms, on the other hand, medical discourses and fashion become more demanding regarding the body feminine. In this way, health and beauty, disease and ugliness are pairs that are often confused, as they suggest limits between what is considered excessive and the ideal. These new demands for body adequacy seem not to be just new needs conceived by medicine or fashion, but the result of the deep development of adversiting techniques that acted to drain the production of the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore, the promotion of supposed female fragility – their illnesses and physical or behavorial defects - through drug adversiting proved to be a particularly effective means in the effort to discipline the female body. Through the analysis of medication advertisements published in the Fon-Fon magazine in the 1920s, this study argues how they acted as instruments of coercion, educating and medicalizing the female body, disseminating ideals of femininity and sexuality, family, health, hygiene and national progress.