Abstract: Disclosed is an appearance inspecting device for a solid formulation, including a supply section for continuously supplying solid formulations such as capsules; an inspecting drum for holding on its outer peripheral portion the solid formulations supplied from the supply section, carrying the solid formulations in such a manner as to allow the solid formulations to be intermittently revolved, and allowing the solid formulations to be rotated on their axes at a specific carrying position; an image pickup device for photographing surfaces of the solid formulations being thus rotated on their axes; a quality determining section for processing images of the solid formulations thus picked up from the image pickup device and determining whether the solid formulations are nondefective or defective; and a classifying section for classifying the solid formulations into defective and nondefective solid formulations on the result determined by the quality determining section and recovering the defective and nondefective

Abstract: A capsule shell comprising 79.6-98.7% by weight of a hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose, 0.03-0.5% by weight of carrageenan, and 0.14-3.19% by weight of a potassium ion and/or a calcium is prepared by drying an solution comprising 18-28% by weight of hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose whose 2% aqueous solution has a viscosity of 2.4-5.4 centistokes at 20.degree. C. as a base, 0.01-0.09% by weight of carrageenan as a gelling agent, and 0.05-0.6% by weight of a potassium ion and/or calcium ion as a co-gelling agent. The capsule shell exhibits disintegrating ability equivalent to gelatin shells without degrading that ability even under special conditions containing much calcium ions.