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Show Menthol. A good part of the world's peppermint comes from Japan, and It is from peppermint pepper-mint that we' get menthol, which. Is. so widely used as a local anesthetic In the treatment of headache. The preliminary steps In the manufac-, tore of menthol are carried out by the Japanese farmers -'themselves, with the aid of stills of a simple design. The peppermint pep-permint plants are first drid hi- sheds, or under cover from the sun; for thirty days. Then they are placed in the stills, where they undergo a process of steaming. steam-ing. The resulting vapors are led off through pipes into cooling chambers, are condensed and deposited as crude peppermint, pepper-mint, oil. The crude peppermint is shipped to Yokohama and Kobe, where factories subject it to a process of fractional frac-tional distillation to obtain the full content con-tent of menthol. Before the war about half the menthol crystals exported from Japan were sent to Germany. Since the outbreak of the war the United .States has become the largest purchaser of these crystals, followed fol-lowed in erder by Great Britain, France and British India. The price has varied from $2 to $2.50 a pound during the last five years, remaining re-maining most of the tHjie near the higher high-er mark. Recent Improvements in the processes of manufacture have kept the price within reasonable limits in spite of a considerable increase in the demand since the beginninng of the war. Oregon' Evening Telegram. . |