Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Mar  ,  1877. 
Sugar-coated  Pills. 
119 
varieties  dispensed  over  the  counters  of  pharmacists  and  from  the 
offices  of  physicians  all  over  the  country.  Many  of  these  pills,  both 
proprietary  and  those  of  regular  pharmacy,  had  been  kept  on  hand  for 
years  until,  I  might  say,  they  have  almost  grown  grey  with  age  before- 
they  were  used,  yet  were  found  to  have  retained  their  pristine  and  youth- 
ful activity  and  energy,  and  no  sepulchral  voice  was  ever  heard,  or  if 
at  all,  very  rarely  against  their  efficiency. 
It  is  by  the  practical  experience  and  close  observation  in  the  sale  and 
use  of  medicines  of  this  kind  that  this  question  or  problem  of  solubility 
or  insolubility  can  be  settled,  and  it  is  only  upon  this  kind  of  testi- 
mony that  any  man,  either  physician  or  pharmacist,  can  base  an  intel- 
ligent judgment,  and  not  upon  hypothesis  or  the  idle  speculations  of 
theorists,  whose  opinions  are  often  like  "  airy  nothings." 
Even  the  coating  of  pills  with  silver  and  gold  leaf,  which  was  at  one 
time  so  much  in  vogue,  has  been  found  by  experience  not  to  interfere 
with  their  solubility.  Prof.  Parrish,  in  his  "Pharmacy,"  page  802, 
1864,  remarks,  "  Since  the  issue  of  the  former  edition  of  this  work, 
the  ancient  practice  of  coating  pills  with  silver  and  gold  leaf  has  been, 
revived."  Same  volume,  page  803,  he  also  says,  u  The  former  belief 
that  a  coating  with  metallic  leaf,  if  sufficient  to  hide  the  taste  and  smell 
of  the  pills,  would  interfere  with  their  solubility,  has  been  very  much 
modified  by  recent  experience." 
We  want  for  testing  the  relative  solubility  of  sugar-coated  pills  or 
of  any  other  kind  of  pills  in  the  alimentary  canal,  not  test-tubes,  tum- 
blers or  other  utensils  and  artificial  gastric  juice,  but  what  we  want  for 
this  important  purpose  are  living  human  alimentary  canals.  The  pill 
which  may  be  most  soluble  in  artificial  mixtures  might  be  the  last  to 
return  to  its  elementary  condition  in  the  gastric  and  intestinal  fluids. 
This  question  is  strictly  within  the  domain  of  the  careful  and  intel- 
ligent therapeutist  and  the  experienced  and  close  observer  of  the  action 
of  medicines  upon  the  human  organism  ;  and  the  hospital,  dispensary 
and  the  private  practice  of  the  physician  are  fields  pregnant  with 
opportunities  for  experiment. 
The  action  of  the  various  secretions  of  the  alimentary  canal,  and  the 
influences  that  are  at  work  in  that  living  crucible,  are  in  a  great  mea- 
sure shrouded  in  doubt,  and  in  the  present  state  of  science  inscrutable 
to  man.  We  can  only  imperfectly  judge  of  their  action  by  certain 
phenomena  and  results. 
