Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
Mar.,  1877.  j 
Sugar-coated  Pills. 
121 
that  even  the  simple  maceration  of  a  pill  in  the  juices  of  the  intestinal 
canal,  for  from  24  to  48  hours,  under  the  influence  of  the  constant 
agitation  of  peristaltic  action,  leaving  out  of  the  question  gastric 
digestion,  would  be  sufficient  to  dissolve  any  pill-coating  made  of  the 
above  materials,  even  if  the  intestinal  fluids  possessed  no  greater  solvent 
power  than  simple  water. 
Since  the  opposition  to  sugar-coated  pills  started,  several  manufac- 
turers of  gelatin-coated  and  "  compressed "  pills  have  loomed  into 
prominence.  The  chief  virtue  upon  which  these  manufacturers  base 
their  superiority  over  sugar-coated  pills,  and  ask  for  them  a  preference, 
is  their  asserted  greater  solubility,  and  it  is  this  assumed  merit  alone 
which,  with  judicious  advertising,  has  secured  them  a  passport  to  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  favor  among  physicians. 
Now,  I  am  for  progress  always,  and  the  profession  will  find  me  an 
ever  zealous  advocate  of  any  change  in  the  form  of  any  remedy  that  will 
augment  its  therapeutic  virtues  or  render  its  administration  more  easy, 
and  which  carries  with  it  real  improvement  ;  but  to  introduce  a  change 
or  multiply  forms  simply  for  the  sake  of  novelty,  or  to  gratify  whims 
or  caprice,  which  will  at  the  same  time  complicate  the  business  of  the 
pharmacist  and  lead  to  confusion,  such  innovations  I  shall  ever  oppose 
to  the  extent  of  my  feeble  influence. 
The  "  compressed"  and  "gelatin-coated"  pills,  in  my  opinion,  are 
simply  novelties,  and  very  expensive  ones  at  that,  especially  the  former. 
I  have  never  heard  complaints  urged  against  the  oval  shape  of  the 
gelatin-coated  pills,  which,  however,  I  deem  objectionable,  as  rendering 
them  difficult  to  swallow,  but  I  have  heard  customers  complain  of 
the  flat  form  of  the  compressed  pills,  rendering  them  more  difficult 
to  swallow  than  that  of  the  round  sugar-coated  pills.  Where  there 
is  one  person  that  could  more  readily  swallow  a  flat  or  oval  body, 
there  are  fifty  who  would  prefer  to  swallow  a  round  one. 
As  the  compressed  or  gelatin  coated  pills  possess  no  real  therapeutic 
superiority,  nor  any  advantages  in  point  of  ease  of  administration 
over  the  ordinary  sugar-coated  pills,  I  consider  their  introduction  seri- 
ously objectionable.  Such  innovations  only  tend  to  entail  greater  trouble 
and  annoyance  upon  both  the  physician  and  pharmacist,  complicate  the 
business  of  the  latter  and  lead  to  confusion  with  the  former,  without 
conferring  compensatory  advantages  upon  either.  To  keep  a  full  stock 
of  all  the  varieties  of  compressed  and  coated  pills  would  involve  an 
