'Pill mass', is first placed between two plain rollers to form a sheet of thickness required for the size of pill to be made, the thickness of the sheet necessarily determining the size of the pills. The sheet then passes to the table of the pill machine, where it is caught by a self-acting feeding apparatus, bringing a portion under the edge of a knife which cuts into strips or bars, such strips falling or being carried by the knife between semicircular grooves, which waste attending the old process by hand, about one thousand pills per minute where made.