Am  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
Mar.,  1877,  J 
Sugar-coated  Pills. 
instance,  as  the  comp.  cathartic,  comp.  rhubarb,  Hooper's  and  Lady 
Webster  pill,  and  pills  of  iodide  and  proto-carbonate  of  iron,  quinia, 
etc.,  should,  by  all  means,  be  coated. 
The  opponents  of  coated  pills  may  say  "  let  every  pharmacist  make 
these  pills  in  small  quantities,  and  renew  his  stock  every  week  or  ten 
days."  But,  I  would  ask,  what  is  to  become  of  the  old  stock  that 
remains  on  hand  at  each  period  of  renewal,  and  which  may  be  the  bulk, 
and,  in  some  instances,  the  entire  lot  ;  must  these  be  discarded  and  cast 
away,  and  a  new  lot  prepared,  to  be  treated  in  like  manner  ?  Yet 
this  must  be  done  if  we  wish  to  meet  the  views  of  some  of  the  oppo- 
nents of  coated  pills,  or  else  the  pharmacists  must  make  their  pills  up 
freshly  when  called  for,  which,  I  can  assure  my  brethren,  would  entail 
upon  the  already  complicated  and  onerous  duties  of  the  pharmacist  an 
amount  of  labor,  trouble  and  real  annoyance,  which  to  be  appreciated 
must  be  experienced.  I  have  realized  a  foretaste  of  this  by  being 
called  upon,  on  several  occasions,  to  prepare  single  doses  of  comp. 
cathartic,  Lady  Webster  and  various  other  kinds  of  pills,  by  persons 
whose  newly-formed  and  unfounded  prejudices  against  sugar-coated 
pills  made  them  obstinately  refuse  to  take  them. 
If  the  practice  of  sugar  coating  pills  should  be  abandoned,  I  can 
assure  both  the  medical  profession  and  the  public  that  they  will  have 
to  use  pills  in  a  worse  and  more  uncertain  condition  than  they  now  have 
them  in  the  sugar-coated  form.  And,  unless  my  conceptions  of 
human  nature  are  very  erroneous,  the  pill  business  would  soon  degen- 
erate into  a  state  of  chaos  and  uncertainty,  and  the  public  would  be 
served  up  with  such  a  sorry  set  of  pharmaceutical  products  in  the  shape 
of  pills  as  to  make  them  soon  cry  aloud  for  a  return  to  the  elegant  and 
palatable  sugar-coated  pill,  which  has,  for  fifteen  years,  steadily  grown 
Into  such  unbounded  popularity,  not  only  with  the  medical  profession  but 
also  with  the  entire  public.  How  could  they  ever  have  attained  this 
•universal  popularity  if  they  had  been  insoluble,  and,  if  insoluble,  why 
was  it  not  discovered  long  ago  by  medical  men,  who  have  been  daily 
and  almost  even  hourly  prescribing  them  for  years. 
The  use  of  glycerin  in  pill  excipients  is  a  very  good  thing  as  far  as 
:t  goes,  but  it  does  not  protect  the  pill 'from  deterioration  by  exposure, 
nor  does  it  shield  the  palate  from  the  disagreeable  contact  of  the 
*s  bitter  pill."  Furthermore,  its  hygroscopic  character  might,  in  some 
instances,  render  it  positively  objectionable,  and  in  no  case  can  it  supply 
