ON IMPORTATIONS OF IODINE. 
203 
of medicinal agents- — the iodides ; more particularly the 
iodide of potassium. Singularly enough, while this latter 
article if imported, pays a duty of 20 per cent., the iodine 
from which it is manufactured pays a duty of 30 per cent., their 
commercial value being very nearly the same ; thus giving 
the foreign preparation an encouragement of about 10 per 
cent., against which the American manufacturer must strug- 
gle, even when sure of obtaining his material. 
In order to show how differently this subject is appreciated 
by other governments, it may be stated that by the tariff of 
France, " iodine" is now admitted into that country free of 
duty; so that while the policy of the one country offers a liberal 
encouragement to its importation, that of the other has been 
not only to restrain its introduction, but by the recent prac- 
tical operation of its laws to confiscate it when received, and 
thereby (it is needless to add) totally to abolish from the 
United States an important manufacture. 
No reference thus far has been made to the French iodine, 
though to France belongs the credit of the discovery — not 
only of the article itself, but of the process of purifying it 
from w^ater by re-sublimation. Although imported from 
France in the refined or anhydrous state, long before such 
improvement had been attempted in Great Britain, it is mani- 
fest that no considerations of the superiority of this article to 
the Scottish, could properly influence the Examiner's estimate 
in deciding upon the comparative excellence of the latter; since 
by the instructions of the Treasury Department already referred 
to, the only standards admissible in determining the strength 
or quality of a drug, are those of the country of its exporta- 
tion. Of course the British iodine must be judged alone by 
British authority. 
Almost immediately upon the discovery of iodine by 
M. Courtois at Paris, the manufacture of the article was com- 
menced in Scotland, and was prosecuted there with even 
superior facilities to those of its native country, in conse- 
quence of the abundant accumulations of iodine sea-weed on 
its more favorably situated coast, and the adjacent islands. 
