tablet

A tablet is the little pressed disc you swallow with water — think of it as a tiny brick made by squeezing drug powder so hard that the particles lock together into one solid lump. It is by far the most common medicine you will ever take, because it is cheap, stable, easy to carry and lets you swallow an exact, pre-measured amount.

Technically, a tablet is a solid dosage form made by compressing a powder or granule blend between two metal punches inside a die. Besides the active drug, the blend almost always contains helper ingredients: a filler to add bulk, a binder to make particles stick, a disintegrant to make the tablet fall apart in the gut, plus a lubricant and glidant so the powder flows and releases cleanly from the press. After compression a tablet may be left bare or given a thin coat.

The trade-off is that not every drug compresses well. Sticky, poorly flowing, or moisture-sensitive powders may first need granulation, and high doses of bulky drugs can make a tablet too large to swallow. For those cases a capsule or a liquid form is sometimes chosen instead.