688 
Editorial. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
X  December,  1896. 
EDITORIAL. 
TABLET  MEDICATION. 
On  page  678  of  this  issue,  we  print  an  editorial  which  appeared  in  the  offi- 
cial Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association,  for  October  31,  1896.  This 
article,  coming  from  the  source  it  does,  may  be  accepted  as  expressing  the 
views  of  at  least  some  American  medical  men  on  the  subject  of  tablet  medica- 
tion. It  defends  the  use  of  the  tablet  by  physicians  as  a  convenient  form  of 
medication,  and  declares  that  the  tablet  is  not  a  passing  fad. 
There  has  been  a  great  deal  written  during  the  past  few  years  about  the 
tablet,  and  one  of  the  prominent  objections  to  it  by  its  opponents  is  the  injury 
to  the  business  of  the  pharmacist.  Much  as  we  feel  for  the  pharmacist,  we 
must  admit  that  this  is  one  of  the  poorest  arguments  against  the  tablet  which 
has  been  put  forth.  If  this  form  of  medication  is  a  real  advancement  in  the 
administration  of  medicine,  then  no  consideration  for  any  class  of  people  will 
long  be  considered.  It  would  be  just  as  unreasonable  as  the  cry  of  the  horse 
dealer  against  the  trolle}'  car,  or  the  opposition  of  the  gas  manufacturer  to  the 
electrician. 
We  do  not  admit  that  this  form  of  medication  is  an  improvement.  Expe- 
rience with  a  few  simple  tablets  has  shown  them  to  be  thoroughly  unreliable. 
Experiments  on  five  samples  of  commercial  compressed  tablets  and  tablet  tri- 
turates, which,  when  dissolved  in  water,  should  have  yielded  official  lime 
water,  showed  that  none  of  them  would  furnish  a  lime  water  of  the  official 
strength  ;  the  strongest  one  barely  showed  half  strength  ;  two  yielded  a  lime 
water  of  about  one-third  strength  ;  one  was  one  tenth  strength  ;  and  one,  when 
dissolved  in  water,  did  not  impart  an  alkaline  reaction  to  litmus  paper.  Any 
one  can  verify  this  statement  by  consulting  this  Journal,  1895,  p.  564.  The 
samples  were  all  from  well-known  manufacturers.  If  such  is  the  result  with  a 
simple  substance  like  lime  water,  what  are  we  to  expect  from  a  tablet  purport- 
ing to  contain  iron  albuminate,  or  another  containing  nine  tinctures  ?  We 
cannot  prove  them  to  be  inert  as  easily  as  we  can  show  the  absence  of  alkalinity 
in  lime  water,  but  any  intelligent  being,  knowing  the  inferiority  in  the  one 
case,  can  draw  but  one  conclusion  concerning  the  others. 
There  is  another  phase  of  the  tablet  question  which  physicians  themselves 
should  see  before  it  is  too  late,  and  that  is  the  encouragement  which,  with  its 
aid,  the  manufacturer  holds  out  to  the  quack.  The  tablet  may  be  a  boon  to  the 
lazy  physician,  but  it  is  a  boom  for  the  quack.  The  latter,  with  a  manufac- 
turer's price-list,  which  designates  the  diseases  that  certain  tablets  are  supposed 
to  fit,  together  with  the  mode  of  administration  and  dose,  is  in  a  position  to 
quiet  his  conscience  with  the  belief  that  he  will  do  no  harm  if  he  is  not  able 
to  do  any  good. 
Then  that  important  part  of  the  community,  which  physicians  are  wont  to 
style  laymen,  is  becoming  more  educated  every  day,  and  the  price-lists  of  the 
manufacturer  are  frequently  allowed  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  this  class.  The 
result  is  self-medication.  This  stage  of  the  tablet  fad  has  already  arrived,  and 
we  may  soon  expect  to  see  physicians  denouncing  tablets  as  insoluble,  unre- 
liable and  made  up  of  incompatibles. 
A  quarter  of  a  century  ago  we  had  the  sugar-coated  pill  fad  ;  then  we  had  the 
elixir  craze  ;  the  gelatin-coated  pill  followed,  and  now  we  have  the  tablet,  which 
