science

Pastille

Pastille is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pastille rather than just read about it. In short: A pastille or pastile 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 by allowing it to dissolve in the mouth. The term "pastille" may also define certain forms of incense.

Key takeaways

Pastille belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pastille to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pastille from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A pastille or pastile 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 by allowing it to dissolve in the mouth. The term "pastille" may also define certain forms of incense. One kind of pastille is a troche, a medicated lozenge that dissolves like a sweet.

Origins 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". 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.

Production 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.

Types Well known pastille type candies include:

Fisherman's Friend medicinal sweets Läkerol Violets Mason Dots Mentos Mint (candy) Pine Bros. throat drops Vocalzone Throat Pastilles, natural throat pastilles for voice overuse Jujube Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles, small round sweets Sisu (candy) Terva Leijona Vichy Pastilles, octagonal candy pastilles Wine gum Grether's Pastilles Pastiglie Leone, Herbal digestives and candy pastilles

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pastille

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pastille claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pastille before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pastille ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pastille

In research: Pastille appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pastille in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pastille is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Confectionery, Medical treatments, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pastille outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pastille in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pastille means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pastille out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pastille in simple terms?

Why does Pastille matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pastille?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pastille.