Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  1 
September,  1896.  / 
Gelatine  Capsules. 
485 
very  popular,  and  experiments  to  improve  the  method  of  their  manu- 
facture were  made  by  many  pharmacists. 
In  the  Repertorium  fur  die  Pharmacie  (1840,  XXIV,  2,  p.  158), 
we  find  an  article  on  "  The  Formation  of  the  Gelatine  Capsule,"  by 
Adolph  Steege,  court  apothecary  at  Bucharest.  He  provided  his 
moulds  with  wooden  handles  fitting  snugly  into  perforations  of  a 
wooden  plate.  Putting  about  fifty  such  moulds  into  position,  he 
dips  them  into  the  gelatine  solution  and  then  rotates  the  whole 
apparatus  in  the  air  until  the  gelatine  has  become  solid  enough  to 
be  handled.  Taking  each  handle  from  the  plate,  he  cuts  the  gela- 
tine neck  at  the  proper  place,  and  pulls  the  capsule  off  the  mould. 
This  process  is  substantially  still  in  use  to-day,  according  to  "Reming- 
ton's Pharmacy,"  third  edition,  p.  1231,  where  the  apparatus  used  by 
Parke,  Davis  &  Co.  is  illustrated  and  described. 
In  1845,  two  French  pharmacists,  Evans  and  Lescher,  invented  a 
process  by  which  a  small  animal  membrane,  made  of  the  small 
intestines  of  the  sheep,  was  used  as  a  covering.  A  description  of 
their  invention  is  given  in  the  Pharmaceutical  Journal  and  Trans- 
actions, 1845-46,  p.  361 ;  but  as  -  it  was  only  short-lived,  a  repetition 
seems  unnecessary. 
It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  capsules  so  far  mentioned  were, 
without  exception,  olive-shaped,  and  had  to  be  closed  with  a  drop 
of  gelatine  solution.  They  were  hand-made  and  naturally  expen- 
sive. The  French  manufacturers  exported  them  to  all  countries, 
but  it  seems  that  they  preferred  to  sell  filled  capsules  of  various 
formulas,  and  while  the  pharmacists  of  other  countries  handled 
them,  the  capsules  did  not  become  of  general  use.  To  us  the  ques- 
tion— how  they  were  introduced  into  American  Pharmacy — is  of 
particular  interest. 
The  first  mention  of  gelatine  capsules  appears  in  the  American 
Journal  of  Pharmacy,  of  1835,  New  Series, Vol.  I,  p.  351,  giving  a 
short  translation  of  Cottereau's  article  in  the  Trait'e  de  Pharmacologic, 
without  any  commentary.  Only  two  years  later  we  find  in  the 
same  journal  (Am.  Jour.  Pharm.,  1837,  New  Series,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  20), 
a  lengthy  article  on  "  Capsules  of  Gelatine,"  by  Alfred  Guillou, 
graduate  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy,  which  is  well 
worth  copying  : 
Provide  a  suitable  number  of  narrow  tin  dishes,  about  18  or  20  inches  in 
length,  yz  inch  deep,  and  about  2  inches  in  width.    In  the  length  of  these  and 
