The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, September 29, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1304, 29 September 1914, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, September 29, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Some of the large chemical firms in Australia have succeeded not only in making chloroform, but also iodine and iodoiorm. For some time past ether has been made, and it is now being produced in' large quantities. The manufacture of chloroform, of which a shortage has been feared, is highly important for the purposes of field hospitals. The anaesthetic in private or ordinary hospital practice, of course, is ether on account of the greater safety of administration. But in a military hospital, into which long strings of wounded men are being carried continuously, it has disadvantages that outweigh its virtues. For one thing, it takes very much longer to put a patient under ether than under chloroform, and it requires much skilled administration. Again, when one ounce of chloroform would be sufficient for an operation it would take about five ounces of ether to get a patient under. On active service where weight of equipment is always a problem, this difference in quantity is an important factor. The inflammability of ether is another drawback to its use, for operations in the field are not conducted in electric-ally-lit rooms. Often the army surgeon has to work by the light of a flickering candle or lamp. For these reasons the manufacture in Australia ot chloroform has given great relief to the medical officers ot the Australian Expeditionary Force. It does not require a doctor to appreciate the surgical value of iodoform and iodine.

It takes a wonderfully short time to scatter two or three hundred millions sterling in war time. “ Though past wars, even the most recent, can furnish very little guidance as to the future,” writes Mr W. R. Lawson, in the Empire Magazine, ‘‘it is interesting to recall their financial results. The Franco-German war cost France over 9000 million francs, one half of which represented the war indemnity paid to Germany. In sterling that would make I »5 I 5) 000 » as war expenditure went on for about nine months, its daily average would be fully a million and a quarter sterling. The other big European war of the past halfcentury —the Russo-Turkish —cost Russia but she had two years’ hard fighting for her money.” He adds that in the present war Great Britain may prepare herself for an addition of three hundred millions to the national debt. The cost of the war is sure to be heavy, whatever the indemnity.

A week before the war a German professor, Herr Balled, of Berlin, published a study of the question of German food supply in time of war. “The results he arrives at,” says the Economist, “are completely pessimistic. The country in the case of a general European war would almost certainly have all its coast blockaded. Most of the corn supplies coming in over Holland and Belgium are carried in British ships, and would stop at once. Austria would have more than enough to do to feed itself, while, in view of the political changes of the last few years, there is not much hope of receiving supplies Irom Roumania. Thrown back on its own resources, Germany would last out, he thinks, a far shorter time than is generally calculated, since even its present production of foodstuffs would be restricted owing to the withdrawal of men to the front.” In qualification of this opinion, it must be stated that the general belief is that Germany could, in war, herself produce almost all the food that she needs.