THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 25 



DRUG MARKETS OF THE WORLD.* 

 By Mr. Albert Plaut. 



Of course you know that it is impossible to speak exhaustively 

 or in detail of the drug- markets of the world, so vast a subject, 

 in a short talk such as I shall give this evening. I shall not 

 touch at all upon the most important part of the subject, statis- 

 tics, but will simply give you a general idea of the way the busi- 

 ness in crude drugs is conducted in various parts of the world. 



The drug business does not differ materially from the business 

 in other natural products ; all are carried on in pretty much the 

 same way. 



The most important drug market of the world, as you all 

 know, is London and the reason for this is not hard to seek. People 

 \vh<> have goods for sale, primarily want prompt cash in return 

 fo/ their commodities. London being the financial center of the 

 world, drafts on London are honored in all parts of the world, and 

 it was bound to follow that London should become the great 

 international drug market. No matter where goods may be 

 produced, the owner, if he sends his merchandise to London, gets 

 cash in the currency of the land as soon as the bill of lading is 

 signed by the captain of the vessel that takes the goods. Many 

 ways have been proposed to increase the foreign commerce of 

 New York; it is a pet subject with our National legislature, our 

 Chamber of Commerce and our other commercial organizations, 

 and committee after committee has been appointed to devise ways 

 and means. Foreign commerce is nowadays not conducted 

 thiough the mails. Goods are bought and sold by cable. Trans- 

 actions are completed long before the steamer that carries the 

 bill of lading and the invoice has left port ; our foreign commerce 

 will never be increased materially by the aid of ship subsidies. 



Another important factor is habit ; people who have been ac- 

 customed to shipping their goods to a certain port for decades 

 and centuries, would have to be offered specially great induce- 

 ments to get them to change their methods. London has been 

 doing this kind of business for so long and in so satisfactory 

 a manner that it is extremely difficult to get it away from there, 

 although some has been diverted. 



In ancient times the trade in drugs, as in fact all trade, centered 

 around the borders of the Mediterranean. The Atlantic was not 

 navigated until very late in our present era, but along the shores 

 of the Mediterranean commerce has flourished for thousands of 

 years before New York was in existence, and the trade in drugs 



*Read at the January Meeting of the New York College of Pharmacy. 



