COMMERCIAL

Evening Star, Issue 16021, 26 January 1916, Page 8

COMMERCIAL

DAIRY PRODUCE AT HOME. Messrs 'Mills and Sparrow advise the National Mortgage and Agency Company .hat the butter market is quiet at 144s :<> 146.= : cheese market, 98s. THE WOOL SALES. Press Association—By Telegraph.—Copyright. BRISBANE. January 26. (Received January 26. at 9.10 a.m.] At the wool sales competition was keen, ind values showed an advance of from 5 to IS per cent. WHEAT POOL. LOSSES INCURRED. Frest AssocUtion —By Telegraph—Copyright. SYDXEY. January 26. 'Received January 26. at 9.10 a.m.) The Wheat Commission have awarded farmers an extra 3d per bushel above tha nrice fixed by the Wheat Acquisition Act, n cases where losses have been incurred. Hon. Mr Hall states that the possible !oss over the wheat transaction in N.S.W. is £IO.OOO. Victoria £30.000. Queensland £30,000, South Australia £30,000, while both Tasmania, and Westralia will surfer heavy losses. DRUGS WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IV GOLD. The scarcity of some of the most important drugs has becom© so acute that medical practitioners are srreatly handicapped, especially as it is difficult to find substitutes for some of the medicine', pioducts which are now unobtainable, except in the smallest quantities. This grea', s< areity has resulted in fabulously high prices being quoted Thus atropine is worth (says the London ' Chronicle') between 3d and 4d a grain (more than its weight ir. gold), while eserine is- worth more; both these drugs are indispensable ii>. ophthalmic sirrgery. The scarcity of atropine is due-to the dearth of belladonna, tlio raw material from which it is extracted, which is obtained from Central Europe. Pbenacetin ; s now ?,2 times the price at which it could be bought before the war, and is bejomini' scaicer and dearer week by week. Aspirin, another very popular drug, is also more than 20 timee the prewar price. Salicylic acid and salicylate of soda—the most commonly prescribed r»f all the rheumatic remedies—are both ebonfc 18 times the price r.t which they could be bought before the wax. Potassium bromide is worth from 10 to 12 times its normal value. These are only a few exampfe's out of the hundreds of drugs and medicinal preparations whom values have* increased enormously as a direct consequence of the war. There appears to be r-o immediate prospect of any general decline in v.'jlue In the case of phenacetin. sntipyrine, aspirin, and other drags of the r-oal tar series, the reason for the extreme prices is that before the war they were manufactured almost solely in Germany, and tip to the present British manufacturers have not- overcome the difficulties in the war of their economical production, although aspirin ir, now being made in fair quantities. A large fortune awaits the manufacturer who succeeds in producing thes* coal tar drugs on a sufficient commercial Kale. Cod liver oil will also be very costly this Trinter