226 MOHR AND REDWOOD'S PRACTICAL PHARMACY. 
place provided, each of which should be about four or five 
inches long. The black hair-pins used by ladies, when 
made straight, answer the purpose very well. A large 
pin-cushion, or a dish filled with sand, in which the wires 
can be fixed erect, will also be required. 
" Each pill is to be stuck on the point of one of these 
wires, and when they are all mounted in this Way, the pills 
are dipped, one at a time, into the solution of gelatin, so as 
to be completely covered, and the wires are then stuck into 
the pin-cushion or sand with the coated pills at the top, as 
is shown in fig. 29. They are left in this position until 
Fig. 29. Fig. 30. 
Coating Pills with Gelatin. 
the gelatin has become firm, which will be in about ten 
minutes or a quarter of an hour, when the pills are removed 
from the wires and put in a tray, fig. 30, where they are 
left to dry. 
" It will generally happen that in dipping the pills, a por- 
tion of the wires will become covered with gelatin, and 
this, on removing the pills will remain attached to them, 
forming little projecting tubes, which should be cut off with 
a pair of scissors. If it be desired to make the coating of 
gelatine perfect, the hole at which the wire has entered the 
pill, must be touched with the point of a camel's hair pen- 
cil previously dipped into the solution of gelatin. 
" Gum and sugar are sometimes used for covering pills. 
The pills are put into a hemispherical metallic pan, which 
is slightly warmed, and a small quantity of the solution of 
one part of gum in two parts of water is added, so as to 
