BY JOHN MACPHERSON, 643 



b} the aborigines in different regions of Australia.* The tannin- 

 containing bark of the White Gum was employed, moistened, by 

 the N'garrabul Blacks as an outward application in ophthalmia, 

 just as in other parts of the continent the bark of divers species 

 of Eucalypts was used for various other purposes. 



To pass on to the Animal Kingdom. The fat of the Carpet 

 Snake {Python spilotes var. varieyaia, Gra}^) was in great demand 

 as an emollient application for burns, or an embrocation for 

 rheumatism, just as, for rheumatic pains, the pristine dwellers of 

 Tasmania employed the fat of the Mutton Bird {Pvffinus brevi- 

 cattdus, Gould t), or the Australian settlers use Emu or Iguana 

 oil. Some of my Yukumbul informants averred that rheumatism 

 was uncommon before the advent of the white colonists, and the 

 consequent change in the aboriginal mode of life. An old Oban 

 native, when I wished him to conduct me to the ground of his 

 Bora {Orba7i-bi,h), proffered his rheumatic joints as an excuse for 

 declining. 



The surgical practice was simple. Slight wounds amongst the 

 Yukumbul people were left untreated —healing readily. In the 

 Ngarrabul tribe an eagle-hawk's feather was placed upon a large 

 cut or wound to close it; over this some soft tea-tree bark, the 

 whole being bound up with a piece of kangaroo-skin to keep it 

 warm and comfortable. On some of the natives irregular 

 cicatrices, chiefly about the forehead, gave evidence of the blows 

 of clubs [Murrunibn^i or Dappirr), wielded by co-tribesmen in 

 altercations, or hostile blacks in intertribal feuds. One Oban 

 aboriginal of great age, in addition to such scars, had a periosteal 

 node upon his frontal bone, and great depressions in his cranial 

 vault. These, he said, were the marks of quarrels with his 

 fellows; but whether they were depressed " pond " fractures or 

 examples of the absorption of the parietal bones which sometimes 

 supervenes in advanced age, I cannot say. 



I 



""■ Edw. Palmer, Oleman, &c. In the National Dispensatory, 5th ed., 

 p. 627, it is stated that the virtues of Eucalyptus leaves were well known to 

 the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia. 



t Bonwick, * The Daily Life of the Tasmanians,' p. 89. 



