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Sugar-coated  Pills. 
[Am  Jour.  Pharm. 
(      Mar.,  1877 
the  place  of  good  sugar  coating  in  preservative  qualities.  It  is,, 
however,  an  excellent  excipient  to  employ  in  making  pills,  when 
eligible,  either  plain  or  coated,  and  I  understand  that  the  majority  of 
our  wholesale  manufacturers  of  sugar-coated  pills  use  it. 
The  argument  that  some  pharmacists  use  against  sugar-coated  pills 
is  that  the  wholesale  manufacturer  shares  with  us  a  portion  of  our 
profits.  This  weak  argument  may  carry  weight  with  some  who 
have  no  business  to  occupy  their  time,  but  pharmacists  who  enjoy  a 
fair  run  of  business  can  spend  their  time  much  more  profitably  in  other 
departments  than  they  can  in  freshly  making  single  doses  of  all  the 
various  popular  pills  for  five  cents  each,  which  is  the  maximum  price 
that  three  out  of  five  pharmacists  could  get,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that 
many  would  be  compelled  to  prepare  them  for  3  cents  per  dose.  If 
anv  pharmacist  would  charge  ten  cents  for  a  dose  of  comp.  cathartic 
pills,  his  unemployed  and,  perhaps,  ignorant  neighbor  would  charge 
three  or  five  cents,  and  thus  either  take  his  customer  or  compel  him 
to  "  come  down."  For  people  are  influenced  very  much  now-a-days 
by  the  charm  of  cheapness,  and  especially  in  little  matters  of  this  kind. 
The  most  popular  pills,  in  my  experience,  are  the  officinal  compound 
cathartic  pills.  These  are  in  constant  demand,  and  are  most  generally 
sold  by  the  single  dose,  and,  to  accommodate  customers,  I  keep  them 
always  put  up  in  doses  of  three,  four  and  five  pills  each,  of  which  I 
sell  many  doses  every  day,  and  for  the  last  fifteen  years  have  sold  none 
in  this  way  but  what  have  been  sugar-coated,  and  presume  that  out  of 
every  fifty  doses  sold  forty-five  are  in  doses  of  only  three  pills  each,, 
it  being  very  rarely  that  doses  of  four  or  five  pills  are  called  for, 
and  I  can  scarcely  recall  to  mind  a  single  complaint  of  their  ineffi- 
cacy.  This  I  consider  a  good  test  of  the  merits  of  sugar-coated 
pills.  If  the  coating  interfered  with  their  solubility  or  activity  I  would 
most  certainly  have  heard  frequent  complaints,  for  the  public  are  not 
generally  very  mealy-mouthed  or  at  all  backward  in  telling  the  pharma- 
cist of  his  short-comings,  or  of  the  lack  of  efficacy  of  any  of  his 
medicines.  I  also  sell  large  quantities  of  sugar-coated  Lady  Webster's, 
compound  rhubarb,  phodophyllin  pills,  etc.,  and  I  never  hear  com- 
plaints of  their  inactivity.  It  is  pills  of  this  character,  which  produce 
decided  and  sensible  effects  upon  the  system,  that  are  the  best  test 
with  reference  to  their  solubility. 
If  purgative  pills  will  dissolve,  which  are  liable  to  be  hurried  through 
