is useful with very soft masses, it also makes an excellent dusting powder for 

 the finished pills. 



POWDERED HARD AND CURD SOAP. The former is of use in making 

 those pills containing vegetable substances as powdered crude drugs, 

 the extracts, and the gum resins such as Myrrh or Asafetida. The latter 

 is especially helpful with pills of Creosote or the Essential Oils. Avoid using 

 soap for massing metallic salts, acids, or compounds of Tannin. 



KOALIN. Of use in massing easily combustible substances such as 

 Permanganate of Potassium. Nitrate of Silver and Phosphorus. Co- 

 hesion is secured by the addition of a fatty substance such as Resin Oint- 

 ment. 



POWDERED ACACIA. Is mentioned only that it may be avoided unless 

 combined with some fibrous powder as Licorice or Althaea Powder. Pills 

 made with Acacia are apt to become extremely hard and have been known 

 to pass through the bowel undissolved. 



COATING OF PILLS. For the physician to attempt anything more 

 than a simple dusting of new made pills with some inert dry powder such 

 as Licorice would be to tempt disaster as the process of coating with sugar, 

 silver, or gelatin, other than using a gelatin capsule, belongs to the expert 

 dispenser. Pills intended for solution in the bowel may be coated with a 

 preparation of Keratin in which case they must be made with a fatty exci- 

 pient, and are difficult to make. They also may be coated with melted 

 Salol which is placed in a shallow container and the pills rotated in it un- 

 til covered. If Salol is used the excipient must not be made of fat. 



On the Dispensing of Capsules. For this purpose the drugs used are 

 powdered finely and placed in the capsule by the aid of a spatula or of 

 a patent capsule filler after being accurately subdivided. The patent filler 

 consists of a stand which supports the capsules in an upright position and 

 a sliding funnel, riding over the base, through which the powder is poured 

 into each capsule. Capsules are made of several sizes, holding from one to 

 ten grains of powdered quinine and more of the denser drugs. All drugs 

 should be reduced to powder before being dispensed in this way. 



A second method is to proceed in the same manner as in the making 

 of pills up to the point of the division of the mass when the sections instead 

 of being moulded into pills are inserted into the capsule after being rolled 

 to the proper diameter. 



Oils, Balsams, and Alcoholic Solutions may be dispensed in this way 

 but care must be taken to seal the cover on by moistening the base of the 

 capsule with a brush dipped in water at the part which is covered by the 

 lid before this is placed in position. This effectually prevents the contents 

 finding their way out and air from entering. Aqueous fluids may not be 



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