price. Heroin, or dia- 

 cetyl morphine, a de- 

 rivative of opium, used 

 almost exclusively in 

 cough medicines, sells 

 today at $14 an ounce. 

 The tremendous use 

 of anodyne medicines 

 to relieve the pain of 

 the millions of wound- 

 ed has undoubtedly 

 had a stimulating ef- 

 fect on the price of 

 opium and morphine. 



Gum tragacanth — 

 used as a source of 

 mucilage in medicine 

 and the arts — of 

 which Aleppo, an an- 

 cient Syrian drug 

 market, where Venice 

 had warehouses in her 

 golden* days, is the 

 trade cente r — is 

 shipped through Aden 

 or the ports of India. 



The increased price 

 in products of this 

 type was approxi- 

 mately 100 per cent 

 during the first year 

 of the war, but it con- 

 tinues to rise day by 

 dav. 



THE 



MUSCOVY COM- 

 PANY 



Concerning Aleppo 

 there is some interest- 

 ing correspondence in 

 the records of the old 

 English Muscovy Company. Edwards, 

 one of their factors, writing in 1566, said : 

 "Therein are many Venetians . . . who 

 buy gall, tallow, saffron, skins, cotton, 

 wool . . . and also will serve us of all 

 kinds of spices, we giving them sufficient 

 warning to fetch it in the Indies and will 

 deliver it to us in Shamaky." 



And as there is nothing new under the 

 sun, another factor tells about the light 

 Russian oil which now, when it is refined, 

 we prize so highly as a medicine : "There 

 is a great river," he wrote, "which falleth 

 into the Caspian Sea by a town called 

 Bachu whereunto which is a strange thing 

 to behold. For there issueth out of the 

 ground a large quantity of oil, which oil 



ograph by F. J. Koch 

 LOADING LIGHTERS AT ZANZIBAR 



Commercial aloes comes to us in tin-lined boxes, cases, casks, 

 tubs, monkey and goat skins from Zanzibar by way of Bombay and 

 in small calabashes from the West Indies. 



they fetch from the uttermost bounds of 

 all Persia, it serveth all the country to 

 burn in their houses. This oil is black 

 and is called Nyfte. There is also by the 

 said town of Bachu another kind of oil 

 which is zvhite and very precious ; it is 

 supposed to be the same that is here called 

 petroleum." 



What if the ancient adventurer could 

 have been granted a vision of the oil-burn- 

 ing submarine and super-dreadnaught ! 

 He would have thrown his spices to the 

 winds. Today men are fighting for that 

 oil as in his day they fought for cloves ! 



Another article of commerce which 

 fortunately we do not use today in medi- 

 cine was shipped from Alexandria. Ar- 



235 



