524        METHODS  OF  MAKING  MEDICINES  AGREEABLE,  ETC. 
method  introduced  by  French  pharmaceutists,  by  which  they  are 
covered  with  gluten  and  sugar.  Odor  and  taste  are  destroyed  by 
converting  them  into  bonbons.  By  this  new  method  the  odor  of 
assafetida  is  entirely  covered,  and  the  most  bitter  dose  render- 
ed palatable.  Extracts,  all  of  the  officinal  pills  and  others,  sev- 
eral decomposable  salts,  many  of  the  alkaloids,  cubebs,  copaiba, 
astringents,  etc.  etc.,  are  prepared  in  this  form.  Those  I  have 
seen  are  from  the  house  of  Garner,  Lamoreaux  &  Co.,  Paris,  and 
are  striking  evidences  of  the  superior  skill  of  the  French  phar- 
maciens. 
The  preparation  of  an  unalterable  pill  of  iodide  of  iron  after 
the  formula  of  Blanchard,  pharmacien  of  Paris,  has  attracted 
considerable  attention.  I  have  prepared  these  pills  for  nearly 
two  years,  and  they  have  become  very  popular  among  my  medi- 
cal friends.  I  now  substitute  an  ethereal  solution  of  mastic  for 
one  of  tolu,  with  advantage  in  coating  the  pills  as  it  dries  quicker ; 
the  varnished  pills  are  not  apt  to  adhere,  and  the  medicinal 
effect  of  the  mastic  aids  that  of  the  iron. 
A  pill  or  bonbon  of  oxidized  balsam  copaiva  under  the  title 
of  "  CopahineMege,"  has  found  much  favor  lately  with  physicians. 
They  have  the  appearance  and  taste  of  sugar  plums,  and  consist 
of  copaiba  (which  has  been  heated  in  contact  with  nitric  acid) 
covered  with  sugar,  colored  and  flavored.  They  agree  well  with 
the  stomach,  and  seem  to  produce  the  curative  effects  of  the 
copaiba  quicker  than  when  it  is  given  by  the  ordinary  methods. 
Lycopodium,  which  costs  but  a  very  little  more  than  the  best 
powdered  liquorice  root,  is  to  my  mind  much  more  elegant  to 
use  for  keeping  pills  from  adhering  to  each  other,  than  any  other 
powder.    Powdered  althea  root  is  also  used  for  this  purpose. 
French  Pharmaciens  who  exhibit  the  greatest  skill  and  improve- 
ments in  that  department  of  pharmacy  of  which  this  paper 
treats,  have  brought  the  process  of  capsulation  almost  to  per- 
fection, as  exampled  by  the  manufactures  of  Raquin,  Clertan  and 
Mathey  Caylus,  in  which  copaiba  alone,  or  its  various  com- 
pounds with  cubebs,  with  astringents,  etc.,  the  turpentines, 
ether,  essential  oils,  and  numerous  other  substances,  are  en- 
veloped in  a  thin,  tasteless  and  inodorous  covering  of  the  gluten 
of  rye  flour,  of  a  size  favorable  to  easy  deglutition,  and  yet  con- 
taining a  sufficient  dose  of  each.  The  filling  of  them  is  so  perfect 
