The continued advance in the price of glycerine continues to excite
comment among those who deal in or use it, and no one seems to know
exactly where or when the advance is likely to stop, or by what means a
retrograde movement will probably be brought about.
As we have heretofore stated, the rise has been brought about by a
combination of two causes--a falling off in production and a great
increase in the demand, owing to the discovery of new uses for it, and
the extension of the branches of manufactures in which it has been
heretofore employed.
In pharmacy, it is coming more and more into use daily, and in various
other branches of manufacture the same tendency is observable. It
has proved itself so elegant and so convenient a vehicle for the
administration of various medicinal substances, is so easily miscible
with both water and alcohol, and is so pleasant to the taste, that it
seems almost a wonder that it should have been so long in attaining the
rank among the articles of the _Materia Medica_ which it now occupies.
The two manufactures, however, which seem to lead in the demand for
glycerine are of nitro-glycerine and of oleomargarine.
The uses to which it is put for the former are well known, but precisely
what the latter could want of the article is not, at first glance,
quite so obvious. We are informed, however, that it is valued for its
antiseptic properties, and also for its softening effect on the _quasi_
butter. Be this as it may, it seems that both here and in Europe the
makers of these two articles are buying largely of both crude and
refined glycerine.
So it appears that the willingness of the people to eat artificial
butter, and the progress in schemes for internal improvement, such as
the De Lesseps Canal, for instance, to say nothing of the European
revolutionists, are responsible to a great extent for the scarcity of an
important article of pharmaceutical use.
On the other hand, while there is a notable increase in the demand for
the article, there is a gradual but very sure and noticeable falling off
in the production.
At present the supply for the whole world comes from the candlemakers
of Europe--chiefly France and Germany--and, as improved methods of
illumination push candles out of the drawing rooms of the wealthier as
well as the cabins of the poor, and consequently out of the markets, the
production of glycerine naturally grows less. In France, for instance,
candles are coming to be regarded among the wealthy chiefly as articles
of luxury, and are lighted only for display at festivals of especial
magnificence and ceremony, while among the poor the kerosene lamp is
coming into almost as universal use as here.
To be sure, the inexorable inn-keeper still keeps up, we believe, the
inevitable _bougie_, but even that is fast becoming more of a fiction
than ever. Even in the churches, it is said, the use of candles is
gradually falling off. To these causes must be attributed the decreasing
supply of the crude material, but it may be doubted whether this
decrease would be sufficient to materially affect the price for some
time to come were it not for the increased demand for the two industries
to which we have alluded. Obviously, there must be found eventually some
substitute for glycerine, or else some new source from which it may be
procured. The natural place to look for this would be in the waste
lye from the soapmakers' boilers, but so far no one has succeeded in
obtaining from this substance the glycerine it undoubtedly contains by
any process sufficiently cheap to allow of its profitable employment.
We are assured by a veteran soap-boiler who has experimented much in
this direction that it is impossible to recover a marketable article of
glycerine from the lees of soap in which resin is an ingredient. In his
words, it "kills the glycerine," and, as none but a few of the finest
soaps are now made without resin, it would seem that the search for
glycerine in this direction must be a hopeless one. It is a curious
commentary in the present state of affairs that previous to about 1857,
when candles were largely manufactured in this country, there was little
or no demand for glycerine, and millions of pounds of it were run
into the sewers. Even then, however, the use of it as a wholesome and
pleasant article of diet was known to the workmen employed in the candle
factories, who were accustomed to drink freely of the mingled glycerine
and water which constituted the waste from the candles. Yet with this
fact under their noses, as it were, it is only recently that members of
the medical profession have begun to recommend the same use of glycerine
as a substitute for cod liver oil.--_Pharmacist_.
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