Transcriber's Note: Do NOT attempt these formulas.
CANDY MEDICATION
BY
BERNARD FANTUS, M. D.
Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, College of
Medicine, University of Illinois, Chicago.
[Illustration]
ST. LOUIS
C. V. MOSBY COMPANY
1915
COPYRIGHT 1915, BY C. V. MOSBY COMPANY
_Press of
C. V. Mosby Company
St. Louis_
PREFACE.
CANDY MEDICATION has given such delightful results in practice among
children that the author believes it should be more widely known
and used. A formulary to serve as the common meeting ground for the
prescribing physician and the dispensing pharmacist seems absolutely
necessary to make this form of medication more generally available; and
it is mainly to supply this formulary that this little book has been
published.
Researches conducted by the author in the Pharmacologic Laboratory of
the University of Illinois during the past five years, as well as the
experience gained by the use of this form of medication in private
practice, form the basis of this publication.
To give the best results, the sweet tablets described in this formulary
should be freshly prepared on physician's order; thereby securing
efficiency and palatability to the highest degree, and enabling
the physician to prescribe the dose and combination needed for the
particular case in hand. To bring these tablets into the category of
extemporaneous preparations, the author has elaborated the process of
"fat covering" which makes the preparation of these tablets no more
difficult than the making of pills or of suppositories.
In the pages that precede the formulary, an attempt has been made to
present the principles that have been used in the elaboration of the
formulae, so that formulae for other medicaments suitable to this form
of administration may be developed.
Concise directions on the care and use of the tablet machine have been
included, to enable any pharmacist equipped with an inexpensive tablet
machine to prepare these tablets without difficulty.
The author is keenly aware of the fact that there are probably still
some imperfections in the formulae given herein; though he has
spared neither time nor labor in making them as perfect as possible.
Therefore, comments and criticisms, as well as suggestions, are most
welcome, and will receive careful consideration.
It is the author's hope that this booklet may be instrumental in
robbing childhood of one of its terrors, namely, nasty medicine; that
it may lessen the difficulties experienced by nurse and mother in
giving medicament to the sick child; and help to make the doctor more
popular with the little ones.
BERNARD FANTUS, M.D.
_Chicago, March, 1915._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Historical Introduction 11
II. Tabellae Dulces 14
III. The Uses of Sweet Tablets 16
IV. The Making of Sweet Tablets 23
V. The Tablet Machine 27
VI. The Construction of Formulae for Sweet Tablets 31
Choice of Flavor 31
Subduing of Tastes 31
Choice of Color 34
VII. Formulae for the Preparation of Sweet Tablets 35
VIII. Formulae for Stock Preparations 72
References 75
Index 77
CANDY MEDICATION
CHAPTER I.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
THE IDEA of presenting medicine in candy form is really very old.
The term confection, which originally meant a medicinal compound
being derived from the Latin word "_conficere_," to put together, has
been applied since the days of classical antiquity to mixtures of
medicinal substances with saccharine matter. The only official relics
of this once very extensive class of preparations are the confection
of rose and the confection of senna; both of which, however, are
also practically obsolete. The reason for this is not difficult to
find. Neither of them come up to our modern ideas of a confection.
We may officially call them a confection, but a youngster would be
disrespectful enough to disagree with the pharmacopoeia.
More closely akin to candy are lozenges, and yet they are not real
candy. The only one among them that is pleasant is the santonin
lozenge; and it is the only one that is popular. An especially good
imitation of candy form are the deservedly popular so-called German
worm lozenges. It was acquaintance with these that led the writer to
seek for other real candy medicaments. He could find only two such upon
the market: viz., Calomel Tablets under the name of "Aromatic Calomel,"
and Phenolphthalein Tablets under various fanciful trade-names, such
as "Purgen," "Phenolax," etc., unless "Candy Cathartic Cascarets,"
and the French candy laxative known as "Tamar Indien" were also to be
included.
* * * * *
Convinced that administration in candy form would be ideal for
children, the author took a number of years ago a course of instruction
with a candy-maker, in the hope of finding in the confectioner's art
some new form of pleasant administration for medicine. He made sulphur
taffy and cod-liver oil chocolate creams;[1] but these and a large
number of other attempts were unsuccessful. It may be of interest,
in this connection, to note that, in 1911, Sir James Sawyer[2]
published in "The Lancet" a process for the production of what he
calls "cremulae" or medicated chocolate creams. They were prepared by
evaporating a mixture of sugar and of milk to the consistency of paste,
in which various medicaments might be incorporated, and which is then
covered with chocolate, as in the popular chocolate drop. This is, as
will be seen, a troublesome process. The author's studies in the candy
shop seemed to point to "fondant" as the most suitable candy form for
purposes of medication. "Fondant", however, has the disadvantage of
becoming hard with age. Free from this objection and closely similar
to the "fondant" is a rather lightly compressed tablet made of finely
powdered cane sugar. And so finally the tablet form was chosen as
the best and most convenient for candy medication--a form which was
already in successful use, as has been stated, for the administration
of calomel and of phenolphthalein. For such tablets the term _tabellae
dulces_,[3] or sweet tablets, might be proposed.