666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



virtue ; hence an extract from the leaves, either aqueous or alcoholic, 

 is used as a febrifuge. As a tonic, water may be aromatized by a 

 slight infusion of the leaves. A liquor similar to that of mastic can 

 be produced, and the pharmacy gives instructions for making a tonic 

 eucalyptal wine. Some of the species are tapped for the sap, and 

 gum-tree cider is obtained ; the leaves of others yield manna. The 

 famous East India kino of commerce, obtained from the Pterocarpnis 

 marsujnum, a lofty legume growing on the mountains of India, now 

 finds a rival in the Botany Bay kino, the concrete juice of the brown 

 gum-tree {Eucalyptus resinifera), of which it is said that a single tree 

 is capable of furnishing 500 pounds of kino in a year. In a word, in 

 the modern pharmacopoeia, eucalyptus, with its many preparations, 

 occupies considerable space. A very interesting instance of what the 

 therapeutist calls " masking " is an application of the oil of eucalypt 

 for the deodorizing and aromatizing of cod-liver oil, thus rendering 

 palatable and even additionally tonic this repulsive medicine. 



At the Intercolonial Exhibition of 1866, in Australia, Baron von 

 Muller caused to be exhibited, as from the Phyto-Chemical Labora- 

 tory of Victoria, tannic acid, gallic acicl, pure wood-spirits, pure acetic 

 acid, distilled wood-vinegar, and other products, obtained from 

 several species of eucalyptus. Mr. Bosisto, a chemist of Victoria, 

 sent to the Philadelphia Exhibition the following products of the one 

 species (E. globulus) : Essential oil a tonic, stimulant, antiseptic, an- 

 thelmintic ; eucalyptol, for inhalation in bronchial or throat affec- 

 tions ; eucalyptic acid ; liquor of eucalyptus globulus stimulant in 

 ague or low fever ; tincture of eucalyptus globulus stimulant, tonic, 

 antiperiodic ; powder of eucalyptus globulus antiseptic, cataplasma ; 

 cigarettes of eucalyptus globulus disinfectant, employed in bronchial 

 or asthmatic affections. But many mysteries are waiting solution in 

 the laboratory of the pharmacist. New substances are to be discov- 

 ered, and those already known will be better understood ; all which 

 revealings will be as new fruits on this tree of the future. 



But let us hear the botanist's story. He says the thing has been a 

 good deal of a bother to him ; that he thought these gum-trees of 

 Australia were pretty much like the animals there, specimens of Na- 

 ture's jokes. Indeed, we find a recent authority saying, " Nine-tenths 

 of the 8,000 species of plants in Australia are unknown elsewhere, and 

 entirely unconnected with the forms of vegetation of any other division 

 of the world." And then to think of the great variety of forms in this 

 one genus, Eucalyptus. In one the leaves, six or seven inches long, 

 are but a quarter of an inch wide, almost grass-like ; while the leaves 

 of the messmate, or E. amygdalina, are almond-shape, and nearly as 

 wide as they are long. Those of E Preissiana are bluntly rounded 

 at the ends (Fig. 1), while the big-berry-gum-tree, E. macrocarpa 

 (Fig. 2), has wide leaves with mucronate points. Compare these with 

 the outline Fig. 3 of E. globulus, with its sickle-shaped leaves, ten 





