We’ve all had those moments with Grandma’s capsules, our own pills, or the tablets we’re supposed to administer to someone with a disability: we’ve found them loose in a drawer or on the table and have no idea what they are anymore. All we know is that they’re expensive, difficult to obtain, or both. Where can you go to find out if it’s Coumadin or Exelon sitting in your hand?

Pillbox is a sweet tool devised to get a positive I.D. for every sort of “unknown solid dosage pharmaceutical” (pill) on the planet. Unlike the stilted verbiage that infers rocket scientists are the only ones misplacing their meds, using Pillbox is a snap.

Put the drug in front of you. Take note of a few simple characteristics:
•    Imprint. That’s the writing you sometimes see on a tablet or capsule. It can be teeny tiny and hard to read, so grab your glasses or a magnifying glass for accuracy.
•    Shape. Do you have an oval, round, triangular or square object? Enter whatever you feel best describes your mystery pill.
•    Color. Yellow, blue, orange? Sometimes it’s a little tough to tell, and you’ll need to run a search in each of the categories (such as blue/green) where it seems to fit.
•    Size. Hold your pill up to the screen and pick the outline that most closely matches it.
•    Scoring. Score marks are the straight lines that sometimes are used to divide a tablet or pill into equal sections. Scoring is meant to make splitting a pill easier if, say, your doctor tells you to take half in the morning and half at night. Some pills are scored into halves, others into quarters. Count how many pieces of the pill would result if all of the score marks were cut.

The result should be your pill.

There are currently close to 6,000 records in Pillbox, but not all of them have images. The collaborators on this project, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have launched a pilot program to photograph all of the medications included on the site. Manufacturers must submit these images for inclusion with the tablet’s FDA-approved drug label. Eventually, every entry will have an image.

And all of the drug names are linked to NLM drug information resources, such as FDA-approved label information at DailyMed. That way, even if you have no clue what Isosorbide Mononitrate is, you’ll quickly find out that it’s used to treat hydrocephalous and glaucoma, with many more specifics available at your fingertips as hyperlinks.

Pillbox is designed to be used by emergency physicians, first responders, other health care providers, caregivers, poison control center staff and regular citizens. However, it presently comes with a disclaimer because not all of the images have been verified by the sponsor/manufacturer. And it’s possible that errors are present in the system. The creators of Pillbox ask that you contact them at pillbox@mail.nih.gov if you notice any value that appears to be incorrect.