46 
The  Santonin  Market. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
January,  1920. 
become  more  or  less  normal,  handle  the  entire  production  of  san- 
tonin of  the  factories,  which  factories  will  in  turn  practically  con- 
trol the  sale  and  production  of  santonin  for  the  whole  world.  The 
reason  why  the  Turkestan  factories  exercise  control,  and  will  con- 
tinue to  do  so,  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  plant,  Artemisia  maritima, 
from  the  unopened  flower  buds  (erroneously  called  wormseed)  of 
which  the  article  is  produced,  while  growing  freely  in  many  parts 
of  the  world  (it  is  said  to  be  found  fairly  abundantly  on  the  Essex 
saltings),  only  yield  santonin  in  paying  quantity  when  grown  on 
the  salt  steppes  of  Turkestan.  Of  course,  it  is  not  impossible, 
although  it  is  to  be  hoped  not  very  probable,  that  the  Turkestan 
factories  are  hopelessly  ruined,  in  which  case  the  prospects  for  the 
future  supply  would  appear  to  be  very  remote.  It  is  true  that  san- 
tonin was  formerly  manufactured  in  Europe  before  the  Turkestan 
factories  were  built,  the  so-called  wormseed  traveling,  it  is  under- 
stood, a  couple  of  thousand  miles  by  bullock  cart  before  it  reached 
railhead,  thence  by  rail  to  a  Baltic  port,  to  Hamburg,  whence  it  was 
sent  to  the  one,  two,  or  three  makers  on  the  Continent,  the  drug  not 
having,  we  believe,  been  produced  on  a  commercial  scale,  or  in  fact 
at  all,  in  this  country.  In  normal  times  the  santonin  produced  by 
the  Turkestan  factories  would  also  travel  by  the  above  route,  at 
least  as  far  as  a  Baltic  port.  Of  course,  with  affairs  in  their  present 
condition  in  Russia  all  this  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  Firstly,  the  two 
Turkestan  factories  are  not  working;  in  fact,  it  is  not  known  really 
for  certain  whether  they  are  actually  still  in  existence.  Secondly, 
as  far  as  the  latest  news — dating,  we  believe,  from  late  in  the  year 
191 7 — there  was  practically  no  stocks  of  manufactured  santonin 
left  at  the  factories  which  do  not  appear  to  have  been  working 
since  that  date.  It  is  believed  possible  that  the  Bolshevists,  when 
they  obtained  control  of  the  districts  in  which  the  factories  are  situ- 
ated, may  have  been  stolen  and  hidden  a  thousand  kilograms  or 
so  of  santonin;  this  is,  however,  not  known  for  certain,  while  it  is 
equally  uncertain  whether  such  i,ooo  kilos,  even  if  the  Bolshevists 
did  secure  same  is  still  in  existence.  The  primary  cause  of  the  late 
enormous  advance  in  the  price  of  santonin  appears  to  have  been  the 
definite  and  total  disappearance  of  a  parcel  of  forty-nine  cases,  each 
containing  50  kilos,  which  were  dispatched  from  the  works  some 
time  in  191 7  via  the  Siberian  Railway  to  Vladivostok,  for  shipment 
thence  to  Europe.  This  little  lot  of  nearly  two  and  a  half  tons, 
worth  at  least  the  present  highly  inflated  price  about   120,000  £, 
