text: Pills are thought to date back to around 1500 BC. Earlier medical recipes, such as those from 4000 BC, were for liquid preparations rather than solids. The first references to pills were found on papyruses in ancient Egypt and contained bread dough, honey, or grease. Medicinal ingredients, such as plant powders or spices, were mixed in and formed by hand to make little balls, or pills.
  In ancient Greece, such medicines were known as katapotia ("something to be swallowed"), and the Roman scholar Pliny, who lived from 23 to 79 AD, first gave a name to what we now call pills, calling them pilula.
  Pills have always been difficult to swallow, and efforts have been made to make them go down easier. In mediaeval times, people coated pills with slippery plant substances. Another approach, used as recently as the 19th century, was to gild them in gold and silver, although this often meant that they would pass through the digestive tract with no effect. In the 1800s, sugar coating and gelatin coating were invented, as were gelatin capsules.
  In 1843, the British painter and inventor William Brockedon was granted a patent for a machine capable of "Shaping Pills, Lozenges, and Black Lead by Pressure in Dies". The device was capable of compressing powder into a tablet without the use of an adhesive.