m.  Jour.  Pharm.1 
August,  1908.  J 
Disintegration  of  Tablets. 
387 
There  is  an  inherent  feeling  or  instinct  in  the  average  human 
being  that  chemical  therapeutics  is  after  all  the  safest  and  most  cer- 
tain to  remedy  ills  or  to  cure  disease. 
It  is  believed  that  now  is  the  psychologic  moment. 
THE  RESTORATION. 
Let  us  then  join  the  medical  profession  in  placing  the  materia 
medica  on  a  safe  basis  and  perfect  our  great  medicinal  standards  for 
the  promotion  of  our  professions  and  the  restoration  of  public  con- 
fidence in  our  practices. 
The  pharmacist,  always  accessible  and  in  contact  with  the  public, 
should  be  the  medium  through  which  this  confidence  may  be  restored 
into  humanity's  greatest  friend — the  physician — let  him  figuratively 
give  the  public  the  glad  hand. 
Let  pharmacy  assume  its  traditional  position  as  a  handmaiden  to 
medicine  as  symbolized  in  the  historical  figure  of  virile  old  Escula- 
pius,  ever  ready  to  combat  disease  with  the  aid  of  the  poison  pressed 
from  the  serpent's  fangs  by  Hygeia — the  goddess  of  Health — the 
symbol  of  pharmacy. 
NOTE  ON  THE  DISINTEGRATION  OF  TABLETS.1 
By  Georges  M.  Beringkr,  Jr. 
Some  time  ago  the  writer  had  occasion  to  prepare  tablets  con- 
taining one  grain  of  arecoline  hydrobromide  for  veterinary  hypo- 
dermatic use."  To  each  of  these,  two  grains  of  sodium  chloride  was 
added.  This  addition  served  the  purpose  of  both  diluent  and  lubri- 
cant, and  the  tablets  were  so  furnished  on  several  occasions.  It 
became  necessary,  however,  to  prepare  them  on  a  very  damp  day 
and  10  per  cent,  of  powdered  boric  acid  was  added  to  overcome  a 
slight  adhesion  to  the  die  and  punches  of  the  tablet  machine.  The 
veterinarian,  for  whom  they  were  prepared,  volunteered  the  infor- 
mation that  these  were  better  than  usual,  and  went  to  pieces  almost 
immediately  on  being  dropped  into  water.  Since  the  arecoline  and 
the  salt  are  both  very  soluble  in  water,  the  increased  rapidity  of 
1  Presented  at  the  thirty-eighth  annual  meeting  of  the  New  Jersey  Pharma- 
ceutical Association  at  Atlantic  City,  N.  J.,  June  3,  1908. 
