THERAPEUTICS.* 
By Dr. H. D. Bergman, Ames, Ia. 
As an introductory subject, I shall first consider, and en¬ 
deavor to answer, the oft-repeated and well taken question of the 
practitioner, as to why drugs fluctuate in price from year to year, 
why certain drugs in common use have doubled, trebled, and 
quadrupled in price in the past year, and also endeavor to show 
how an extremely popular drug may lose its popularity with the 
profession, figuratively speaking, over night. There is no one 
causative factor for the increase in price of drugs. One of the 
principal reasons, however, is the necessity of their coming up to 
pharmacopeal standards at the present time, and, while we are 
paying a larger price, we are getting a purer product and not one 
containing from 5 to 25 per cent, of some foreign inactive sub¬ 
stance, Again, the increased demand has to do with the increase 
in price. At the present time, people do not treat their own ail¬ 
ments and those of their animals with simple home remedies as 
in the past, but there are more physicians and veterinarians em¬ 
ployed, and hence an increased demand for medicinal agents, and 
we all know that demand regulates price of any commercial prod¬ 
uct. Fluctuations in price depend largely, also, on the success 
or failure of the crop from which certain drugs are derived. For 
instance, the flax crop last year was a failure, and I think you all 
know something in regard to the price of linseed oil at present. 
Two or three years ago santoin was worth in the neighborhood 
of $4 per pound. Today it is worth $17, due, the wholesalers 
say, to crop shortage, and we are glad to note also that they claim 
the rise in price is only temporary. In the case of opium, the 
Chinese government will now only allow a certain amount to be 
produced, owing to the great increase of the opium smoking 
habit among her population. The other countries have also put 
♦Committee Report, Iowa Veterinary Association, Cedar Rapids, November, 1911. 
583 
