Alternative names | Troche, medicated lozenge |
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Type | Confectionery |
Main ingredients | Thick liquid |
A pastille is a type of sweet or medicinal pill made of a thick liquid that has been solidified and is meant to be consumed by light chewing and allowing it to dissolve in the mouth. The term is also used to describe certain forms of incense. [1]
A pastille is also known as a troche, which is a medicated lozenge that dissolves like sweets.
The word pastille comes from the same origin as pastry, from the Latin word pastillus, for a lump of meal or grain, which was from panis, "bread".[ citation needed ]
A pastille was originally a pill-shaped lump of compressed herbs, which was burnt to release its medicinal properties. Literary references to the burning of medicinal pastilles include the short story "The Birth-Mark" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the poem "The Laboratory" by Robert Browning, and the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. They are also mentioned in the novel McTeague by Frank Norris, when the title character's wife burns them to mask an unpleasant odor in the couple's rooms. In Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon , "a half-filled package of violet pastilles" is among the items found in Joel Cairo's pockets. In Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo , pastilles are used for the delivery of both medicine and poison. They were also widely used during the eighteenth century in Western cultures to take herbal curatives and medicines, which eventually were developed into sweets.
Pastilles are made by pouring a thick liquid into a powdered, sugared, or waxed mold and then allowing the liquid to set and dry. The substances contained in the dried liquid are slowly released when chewed and allowed to dissolve in the mouth. The substances are then absorbed by the mucous membranes of the oral cavity or in the lower gastro-intestinal tracts. Various substances, be they of medicinal nature or for flavour, can be put into pastille forms.
Due to the oily nature of these active substances (essential oils, tinctures and extracts), pastilles are usually based on mixtures of starch and gum arabic, which emulsifies the substance and binds them in a hydrocolloidal matrix. The starch and gum also reduces the rate in which the pastille dissolves and moderates the amount of active substances delivered at a time. Gum arabic also hardens the pastilles and makes them more sturdy in storage and transport. [2]
Well known pastille type candies include:
Confectionery is the art of making confections, or sweet foods. Confections are items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates although exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confections are divided into two broad and somewhat overlapping categories: bakers' confections and sugar confections.
Candy, alternatively called sweets or lollies, is a confection that features sugar as a principal ingredient. The category, also called sugar confectionery, encompasses any sweet confection, including chocolate, chewing gum, and sugar candy. Vegetables, fruit, or nuts which have been glazed and coated with sugar are said to be candied.
A tablet is a pharmaceutical oral dosage form or solid unit dosage form. Tablets may be defined as the solid unit dosage form of medication with suitable excipients. It comprises a mixture of active substances and excipients, usually in powder form, that are pressed or compacted into a solid dose. The main advantages of tablets are that they ensure a consistent dose of medicine that is easy to consume.
Marshmallow is a confectionery made from sugar, water and gelatin whipped to a solid-but-soft consistency. It is used as a filling in baking or molded into shapes and coated with corn starch. This sugar confection is inspired by a medicinal confection made from Althaea officinalis, the marsh-mallow plant.
Xerostomia, also known as dry mouth, is a subjective complaint of dryness in the mouth, which may be associated with a change in the composition of saliva, or reduced salivary flow, or have no identifiable cause.
Salty liquorice, salmiak liquorice or salmiac liquorice, is a variety of liquorice flavoured with salmiak salt, and is a common confection found in the Nordic countries, Benelux, and northern Germany. Salmiak salt gives salty liquorice an astringent, salty taste, akin to that of tannins—a characteristic of red wines, which adds bitterness and astringency to the flavour. Consuming salmiak liquorice can stimulate either a savoury or non-savoury palate and response. Anise oil can also be an additional main ingredient in salty liquorice. Extra-salty liquorice is additionally coated with salmiak salt or salmiak powder, or sometimes table salt.
Wine gums are chewy, firm pastille-type sweets originating from the United Kingdom. All brands have their own recipes containing various sweeteners, flavourings and colourings. Wine gums are popular in the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, South Africa and many Commonwealth nations, as well as several European countries. Common brands include Maynards, Bassett's, Haribo and Lion.
Sugar candy is any candy whose primary ingredient is sugar. The main types of sugar candies are hard candies, fondants, caramels, jellies, and nougats. In British English, this broad category of sugar candies is called sweets, and the name candy or sugar-candy is used only for hard candies that are nearly solid sugar.
Liquorice or licorice is a confection usually flavoured and coloured black with the extract of the roots of the liquorice plant Glycyrrhiza glabra.
C. Howard Company, Inc., based in Bellport, New York, is the maker of Choward's Fine Mints and Gum. The company's flagship product is its unique hard square tablet "mint" (candy) with a distinct violet aroma and taste. Choward's candies are also available in lemon, spearmint, guava, and peppermint flavors.
Parma Violets are a British violet-flavoured tablet confectionery manufactured by the Derbyshire company Swizzels Matlow, named after the Parma violet variety of the flower. The sweets are hard, biconcave disc-shaped sweets, similar to the Fizzers product from the same company but without their fizziness. Swizzels Matlow have also released a line of Giant Parma Violets.
A throat lozenge is a small, typically medicated tablet intended to be dissolved slowly in the mouth to temporarily stop coughs, lubricate, and soothe irritated tissues of the throat, possibly from the common cold or influenza. Cough tablets have taken the name lozenge, based on their original shape, a diamond.
Airwaves is a brand of sugarfree chewing gum produced by the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, and sold primarily in Europe and East Asia. The brand is marketed for its intense flavor similar to the effect one would get from the consumption of cough drops. This intensity of flavor is obtained by including Eucalyptus and Menthol in the candy coating of the tablets of gum.
Rowntree's Fruit Gums are circular sweets formerly made by Rowntree's, who were later acquired by Nestlé. There are five flavours, each of a different colour: strawberry, orange, lemon, blackcurrant, and lime.
Swizzels Matlow Limited, branded as Swizzels, is a confectionery manufacturer based in New Mills, Derbyshire, near Stockport in the United Kingdom.
Dosage forms are pharmaceutical drug products in the form in which they are marketed for use, with a specific mixture of active ingredients and inactive components (excipients), in a particular configuration, and apportioned into a particular dose. For example, two products may both be amoxicillin, but one is in 500 mg capsules and another is in 250 mg chewable tablets. The term unit dose can also sometimes encompass non-reusable packaging as well, although the FDA distinguishes that by unit-dose "packaging" or "dispensing". Depending on the context, multi(ple) unit dose can refer to distinct drug products packaged together, or to a single drug product containing multiple drugs and/or doses. The term dosage form can also sometimes refer only to the pharmaceutical formulation of a drug product's constituent drug substance(s) and any blends involved, without considering matters beyond that. Because of the somewhat vague boundaries and unclear overlap of these terms and certain variants and qualifiers within the pharmaceutical industry, caution is often advisable when conversing with someone who may be unfamiliar with another person's use of the term.
A hard candy, or boiled sweet, is a sugar candy prepared from one or more sugar-based syrups that is heated to a temperature of 160 °C (320 °F) to make candy. Among the many hard candy varieties are stick candy such as the candy cane, lollipops, rock, aniseed twists, and bêtises de Cambrai. "Boiled" is a misnomer, as sucrose melts fully at approximately 186 °C. Further heating breaks it into glucose and fructose molecules before it can vaporize.