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. CHAPTER II. TABELLAE DULCES. TO BE SUCCESSFUL, sweet tablets must meet the following requirements: 1. They must be perfectly delicious sweets, attractive in form, color, and odor; and free from the slightest suspicion of disagreeable or medicinal taste. 2. They must disintegrate rapidly in the mouth; for a sick child will usually not suck candy as a healthy youngster would. 3. To constitute a real advance in therapeutics, it must be possible for the average pharmacist to prepare them extemporaneously, so that the physician may be able to fit the medicament to suit the case, and that the pharmacist may not be forced to carry in stock a large assortment of these more or less perishable goods.