Anocfober,Pi9oa2^m"}    Advances  in  Pharmaceutical  Manufactures.  469 
The  makers  of  plasters  and  surgical  dressings  also  have  splendid 
vacuum  appliances  of  great  size  for  sterilization. 
Extract  of  malt  is  made  tons  at  a  time  in  low  pressure  vacuum 
pans,  while  diastase  is  prepared  in  a  wonderfully  active  state. 
By-products  of  the  huge  packing  houses  are  extract  of  beef,  pep- 
sin and  pancreatin,  and  stearin ;  while  the  creameries  make  sugar 
of  milk  and  caseine. 
Returning  to  our  laboratories,  the  most  important  galenicals  they 
make  besides  the  extracts  are  aloin,  santonin,  resin  scammony  and 
resin  podophyllum.  Then  there  are  a  variety  of  emulsions,  elixirs, 
syrups,  and  medicinal  wines. 
The  large  pharmaceutical  laboratories  have  been  laudibly  enter, 
prising  in  their  search  for  drugs  and  have  introduced  some  of  great 
value — cascara,  for  instance. 
The  demand  for  the  chief  alkaloids  has  steadily  increased  until 
the  production  of  quinine  and  morphine  has  become  enormous.  The 
estimated  annual  consumption  of  quinine  in  the  United  States  is 
five  million  ounces,  and  that  of  morphine  is  four  hundred  thousand 
ounces. 
The  manufacture  of  strychnine,  caffeine,  and  cocaine  has  developed 
so  greatly  that  it  seems  at  the  present  time  to  be  ahead  of  the  con- 
sumption, large  though  it  be. 
Fifteen  years  ago  cocaine  sold  by  the  grain  and  now  its  annual 
consumption  in  this  country  approximates  one  hundred  thousand 
ounces. 
Most  of  the  mineral  acids  and  salts  sold  by  the  druggists  are 
heavy  chemicals  and  are  now  made  by  the  combination.  Rochelle 
salt,  cream  of  tartar,  magnesia,  borax  and  chlorate  of  potash  have 
long  since  outgrown  the  pharmaceutical  laboratories ;  but  these 
still  make  the  salts  of  bismuth  and  certain  salts  of  iron  and  manga- 
nese and  of  mercury  besides  iodides  and  bromides  and  phosphates 
and  peroxide  of  hydrogen,  while  latterly  several  have  undertaken 
the  manufacture  of  lithia  from  its  minerals,  lepidolite  from  California 
and  spodumene  from  Dakota,  with  the  result  that  the  price  has 
fallen  in  two  years  from  $3.30  to  $1.30  a  pound;  because  the 
capacity  of  the  plants  is  perhaps  double  the  consumption,  which  is 
about  sixty  thousand  pounds  a  year. 
So  the  pharmaceutical  chemist,  like  the  alchemist  of  old,  finds  his 
material  in  rare  and  beautiful  minerals,  in  the  cells  of  outlandish 
