Dragées

DRAGÉES, dragees, pills or tablets coated with a layer of sugar, chocolate, and similar substances that mask the unpleasant bitter taste of medications (for example, extract of cascara, quinine, and the like). The layer of sugar, more or less hermetically covering the surface of the pills or tablets, helps preserve the active substances that change in the air; for example, in Blaud's pills (Pil. Blaudii) during ordinary storage, the ferrous compound easily oxidizes.

In factories, the coating of pills and tablets with sugar is usually done in special devices consisting of a rotating spherical vessel, sometimes with a heating attachment (see the illustration).