200 BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
Mr Morson said that the most remarkable thing in connection with chloral appeared 
to be, that by regulating the dose a person could be put to sleep for a definite nnmhe 
° f Mr U Palk thought that differences of constitution and temperament would upset 
such calculations to a great extent. 
ON EXCIPIENTS FOE PILLS. 
BY MR. W. D. SAVAGE. 
Mr Arnold Cooley, in liis work on pill-making, concludes the introduction 
with this very apposite sentence, “ Honour and good faith toward the cus¬ 
tomer or patient, will not permit defects m the consistence or plasticity of a 
pill-mass to be remedied by additions unauthorized by the prescription as 
L unfortunately too often done by careless, inexperienced, and unscrupulous 
manipulators.” Whilst I entirely concur in the principle [ {£ 
Mr. Cooley, there are cases in practice which not only justify but actua y 
require an addition before the author’s wishes can be complied with and 
pills made,—this too, without detracting m the slightest degree from the 
efficacy of the remedy prescribed ; take for illustration the following recipe, 
which first suggested to Mr. Hornsby the necessity of an addition : 
‘ " £ Creasoti .... "ixxiv 
Pil. Sapon. Co. . . 5 s8 
M. into Pil. xij. 
If Y our pil. sapon. co. be fresh, you will find this to be an unmanageable 
mass • add to it liquorice powder, and you have, with only mj of creasote, 
7 ar pills (A) ; with decorticated liquorice you will require one grain moie 
for each pill (B) ; with the niij of creasote, you have with powdered gum 
tragacanth and wax very large pills (C); with calcined magpena.and also 
with calcined magnesia and powdered soap, you have some nice-looking pills 
(D and E), heavy! but not bulky ; they have, however the disadvantage of 
beino- insoluble in boiling water : miij of creasote and 5 grains of pil. sapon. 
co. absorbed so much liquorice that, divided into two pills, each weighed 1 2 
c-rains (F). Powdered Castile soap with the relative proportion of opium 
was tried (G), but with little advantage ; creasote and powdered opium 
without soap, but with liquorice powder, made more convenient pills ( ), 
but still objectionable; and white and yellow wax were tried, the latter being 
more plastic is preferable and makes very good pills ; therefore if it is neces¬ 
sary to give creasote in pills at all, why adopt the objectionable plan of or¬ 
dering, L is usual, pil. sapon. co. with it, when an equivalent quantity of 
opium with wax will produce a pill holding two minims of creasote not so 
large as an ordinary 5-grain pill, possessing the advantage of ^ 
oil, without increasing in size by re-absorbmg powde ( ) 
without opium is (K); with half a gram more wax m each pill is (L). In 
order to test Mr. Hornsby’s results I made several lots of pills with some 
jj saDon co. and using the drop instead of the minim measure for 
the oils, and whilst the pills are much smaller than his, the advantage of 
w ax over soap is most manifest. No. 1, plain and silvered, compared with 
No. 2 or 3 is obviously in favour of the former, so that although wax is 
superior to soap as an excipient with oil, we have no r JRbt to use it whe 
soap is ordered, unless by permission of the prescribe!. At the same time it 
is well that any suggestion of practical utility should be brought before t 
trade, and by them to the profession, and I know of no means better than 
this Conference to effect the object. The convenience of administering 
creasote in pills is but a small matter. The general application of wax as an 
