Pill container-dispenser

Claim 1

A container-dispenser for pills and the like comprising: a. a body member having formed therein an elongated pill reservoir adapted to contain a series of pills in stacked relation, said pills having a uniform thickness longitudinally of said reservoir, a pill discharge opening laterally offset from said reservoir and opening exteriorly of said body member, and a slide passageway extending transversely to said reservoir and interconnecting said reservoir and said discharge opening, said reservoir being otherwise hermetically sealed, b. a slide longitudinally movable in said passageway, and having a hole formed transversely therethrough the axis of which is parallel to said reservoir, said slide being movable between a first position in which said hole registers with said reservoir and a second position in which said hole registers with said discharge opening, said slide being wedge-shaped in a plane parallel to the reservoir axis, being taperingly reduced in thickness in the direction of movement thereof toward its first position, the walls of said passageway mating with the wedge surfaces of said slide when said slide is in its first position being correspondingly tapered, whereby in said first slide position to provide sealing contact between said slide and body member in encircling relation to the reservoir entry to said passageway, and to the hole of said slide, the thickness of said slide, longitudinally of said reservoir, being respectively less than and greater than the thickness of a single pill at the edges of the slide hole which are respectively adjacent the thinner and the thicker ends of the wedge portion of the slide, c. resilient means operable to bias a stack of pills contained in said reservoir toward the end of said reservoir interconnected with said slide reservoir, d. manually operable means for moving said slide from said first position to said second position, and e. resilient means biasing said slide toward said first position.