20 president's address. 



and that " the sole charge of keeping up the Society ultimately 

 fell upon such a very few individuals, that it was at length given 

 up." The Society is very much indebted to the Trustees of the 

 Australian Museum for the recovery of the Minute Book; and 

 the Council has acknowledged its indebtedness to them, with an 

 appropriate expression of itis appreciation of their forethought in 

 making this record of a bygone time available to the Society. 



The year's work of the Society's research-staff may be sum- 

 marised as follows: — Dr. R. Greig-Smith, Macleay Bacteriologist 

 to the Society, completed two papers during the Session. One 

 of these, the sixteenth of his "Contributions to a knowledge of 

 Soil-Fertility,'' dealing with the search for toxin-producers, was 

 published in Part i. of the Proceedings for 1918. The second, 

 which is a first contribution to a knowledge of the germicidal 

 activity of Eucalyptus Oils, will be read at the next Monthly 

 Meeting. The results of this paper are, that when a serum- 

 suspension of Micrococcus aureus was absorbed in cotton, and 

 placed in dilutions of the Eucalyptus oils in olive oil for two 

 hours at 20°C, it was found that the bactericidal power was 

 proportional to the acidity of the oils. The germicidal effect, 

 however, was not caused by the acidity, but was assisted by it. 

 The effect upon Bacillus coli-communis was of much the same 

 nature, although the action of the acid was not so clearly shown. 

 The iodide reaction was no criterion of the germicidal value of 

 the oils. The vapours of the oils have a decided bactericidal 

 action. Jointly with Mr. W. W. L'Estrange, a paper explana 

 tory of the "Springing" of Tins of Preserved Fruit will be found 

 in Part 2 of the last year's Proceedings. 



Dr. J. M. Petrie, Linnean Macleay Fellow of the Society in 

 Biochemistry, completed an important paper on the occurrence 

 of methyl hevo-inositol in an Australian poisonous plant {Het&ro- 

 dendron oleosfolium), which will be found in the concluding Part 

 of last year's Proceedings. The substance isolated is apparently 

 identical with Tanrets quebrachite, and had been previously 

 recorded from three plants only. The occurrence of this methyl 

 ester of Uevo- rotatory inositol is, therefore, exceedingly rare, and 



