Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1887. 
Bland' s  Pills, 
237 
process  I  believe  yields  the  minimum  of  FeC03.  Still  the  pills  seem 
to  be  as  good  medicinally,  and  no  fault  has  been  found  either  by  pre- 
scribes or  patients.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Hill  tells  me  he  has 
known  of  pills  which  contained  not  a  trace  of  ferrous  iron,  and  yet 
were  said  to  act  as  rapidly  on  the  system  as  the  others.  Another  gen- 
tleman takes  oz.  dried  FeS04  and  the  same  quantity  of  K2COs, 
mixes  them,  adding  1  oz.  pulv.  acacia,  and  beats  into  a  mass  with 
simple  syrup,  cutting  into  four-grain  pills.  After  standing  for  some 
time  to  harden,  he  varnishes  them  with  solution  of  tolu  in  ether. 
They  are  certainly  beautiful  pills  to  all  outward  appearance ;  but  here 
again  he  believes  the  stomach  to  be  the  proper  place  for  the  chemical 
reaction  between  the  salts,  not  the  mortar.  He  has  great  faith  in  his 
own  method,  and  tells  me  that  a  customer  of  his  who  had  gone  to  the 
south  of  England  asked  her  chemist  there  to  send  to  Edinburgh  for 
A.'s  compressed  Blaud's  Pills.  Others  either  made  them  by  Martin- 
dale's  or  Ince's  formula ;  two  I  think  by  simply  rubbing  the  two  salts 
together,  and  adding  tragacanth  q.  s.  to  the  liquid  mass  to  give  it  a 
proper  consistency. 
Wishing  to  test  the  keeping  properties  of  pills  made  by  the  methods 
followed,  I  made  two  dozen  each  from  Mr.  Ince's  formula,  Mr.  Mar- 
tindale's  and  the  old  way  above  described.  All  were  made  the  same 
night,  and  estimated  with  K2Cr207,  using  sulphuric  acid  as  a  solvent, 
and  checking  the  results  by  duplicate  estimations,  using  H3P04  as  a 
solvent  to  avoid  the  action  of  the  sugar  influencing  the  conversion  of 
the  ferrous  to  ferric  salt.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  difference  between 
the  four  estimations  was  very  slight  (two  with  H2S04  and  two  with 
H3P04).    The  following  is  Mr.  Ince's  method : 
^    r  Ferric  sulph   ^ss. 
\  Glycerin  (hydrated)   rr\_iij . 
2    r Potass,  carb  ,   ^ss. 
I  Glycerin   nyj. 
Mix  1  and  2  separately  on  a  slab  with  glycerin,  then  mix  together 
in  the  mortar,  add  p.  tragacanth,  gr.  vj,  and  divide  into  twelve  pills. 
In  this  formula  K2C03  is  very  much  in  excess  of  what  is  actually 
necessary  for  the  conversion  of  the  FeS04  into  FeC03,  the  30  grains 
Fe$047H20  requiring  only  16  grains  of  anhydrous  K2COs,  equal  to 
about  20  grains  of  the  B.P.  salt,  which  contains  16  per  cent.  H20. 
Mr.  Martindale  says  that  a  pill  made  with  equal  quantities  of  the  two 
