Costs in anesthesia: an international survey.

The actual commercial costs of oxygen, nitrous oxide, halothane, enflurane, two narcotic analgesics, two muscle relaxants, soda lime, an oxygen analyzer, a capnograph, a journal and a textbook were obtained from twenty-nine countries and compared. Marked variations were found, ranging from one to several fold. Although in some instances the possible reasons for excessive costs were obvious (distance, importation taxes, postage, inflation and local manufacturing, etc.), in others no apparent justification for such disparity could be determined.