The weekly tribune and the Cape County herald. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1914-1918, 1915-10-29
WAR MAKESDRUC
PRICES INITIATE
nth DIMENTION.
Leap Upward so Fast, Clerks
Scarcely Can Figure Cost
of Prescriptions
COAL TAR PRODUCTS
CUTOFF FROM EUROPE
Wholesale Figures Jump 800 Per
Cent-NO Price Lists Are
Quoted

When druggists these days fill a
doctors prescription and then get
ready to announce the bill, they are
forced to do a job of rapid, shifting
calculation.
The elusive drug price is sort of
second fourth dimention."
1t is there, but it is almost impossi-
able to catch up with it. And so it re-
qulres job of rapid calculation to
figure costs while prices momentarily
remain stationary, and job of shoft-
ing calculation to keep even with the
comet-like advance of the costs.
1t is all because of the war and the
fact that Germans have more patience
in learning how to prepare drugs bet
ter and more cheaply than any other
nation.
All drugs that are the products of
coal tar, now are "out-of-sight" when
it comes to price. Quinine is becoming
professor rather the price is so big
on one can afford to buy it, so it might
Just as we'll disappear from the face
of the earth.
One man on Main street, who was
confronted with the rise in the price
of drug store commodities, announced
an intention of having a jeweler solder
3-grain capsule to the end of plat
mum pin to wear it in his cravat.
"NO gem is in existance that will
have it bested," he remarked, as he
picked up a pod of the medicine and
started off.
Three or four days ago, druggists
were scanning their price lists from
wholesale houses with establishment.
Now they haven't even a price list.
There is no price list on large num-
Der of drugs. 1t simply has quit the
business-the price list, that is.
"Wholesale houses say: eve will
not make you any price when we take
your order. We will fill your order if
we can, and charge you the prevailing
market price when we do"
The wholesaler frankly admits he
don't know Just how high the price will
soar by that time.
Importations from Germany have
ceased. Drug jobbers have endeavored
to keep spectators from getting a
corner on the supplies of German
made drugs and in the last year they
have succeeded to a great extent, it is
declared, but it now is coming to pass
when the law of Supply and demand"
is getting the Corner" on the market.
There is no Supply" and there is a
big demand" The natural result has
heen a stupendous leap in the drug
prices.
Just for Nuisance, quinine sulfate,
the basis of all quinine products, that
a year ago sold for 81 cents an ounce,
last were quoted at $3.50 an ounce.
Retail druggists are permitted to buy
only ) ounces to the order, and only |
one order a day.
Carbolic acid scared from 81 cents |
pound to S2.25. This is crude acid,
which reaches the druggist in crystal
form and is transferred to the liquid |
state by adding water.
Phenacetine, coal-tar product, used !
in headache compounds and physicians
prescriptions, and greatly in demand, |
has advanced from $1.25 a pound in
1914, to $40 pound. Acetanilid, also
a coal-tar product, formerly selling at
SLIPS a pound, now is IS cents an
ounce.
Benzoaic acid rose from 81 cents a
pound in barrel lots, to $3.50. Cafine
salts, extracted from coffee and tea,
and used as a headache remedy, have
gone from So to So pound.
Cod-liver oil, which sold at SIPS a
gallon before the war, is now 81 gol-
Ion. Oil of rose, employed to perfume
has gone from Sc an ounce,
to S25. Bromide salts, used in nervous
diseases, sell at $3.50 a pound, where
as, they formerly sold at S1.35.
Sacchrin, used extensively as a
sweetening agent, having a sweeting
power 500 times that of sugar, has adj
vanced from s1.90 to S14 a pound.
Salicylate of soda has gone from So
cents pound to $3.50.
EPSON salts which formerly sold at |
$3.50 hundred pounds, now costs. Sc.
Some commodities cannot be obtain .
ed at any price. Woolfat, for instance,
has advanced from 20 cents a pound :
to S1.50, and there is none in tthe mar
ket at that price. Woolfat is an i'm
portant basis oil for ointments, and is
to d great extent, in GER