Salol-coating has been suggested to take the place of keratin-coating as being less troublesome and quite as effective. The coating is applied as follows: Take the 'Goodess' pill-finisher and sprinkle into it a scruple of salol for every two dozen 5-grain pills to be coated; heat carefully over the flame, moving the finisher all the time, until the bottom of the pan is wholly covered with melted salol. Now put in the pills and rotate until they are evenly coated with the melted salol. Transfer quickly to a photographic developing-dish which has had the chill taken off it, keep the pills rolling in this pan for a minute or so, when the coating becomes hard, glassy-looking, and greyish-white when cold. It should be thin, but if too thick a coating happens to have been applied, clean out the 'Goodess' finisher, put the pills into it, warm, and keep the pills moving until the coating melts; then finish as before. As the coating is apt to chip off, the pills should be dispensed in boxes, the layers being separated by cotton wool.

Another method is to varnish the pills with the following solution:

Dissolve. To be used as a varnish for pills free from adherent powder.

Salol-coated pills are taken one hour after food. The mass must not be of a fatty nature, as fats dissolve salol. Compare also the phenol table, page 97.