president's address. 483 



commodity in Europe. It is a bitter bark with tonic properties 

 superior to almost any in use, and perfectly safe. This is all the 

 more strange, as Alstonia belongs to the so-called dogbanes, one 

 of the most poisonous families of plants, though an Indian species 

 of the same genus is used in India as a tonic. This Queensland 

 tree grows rather abundantly on the Darling Downs on the edge 

 of the Acacia scrubs. The same observer finds in the native 

 pepper of Queensland f Piper Novae Hollandice) an aromatic extract 

 which in large doses produces the symptoms of narcotic poisoning 

 on the lower animals. He has also discovered very curious 

 properties in Xanthium strumarium, a weed so nearly allied to the 

 Bathurst burr as to be easily mistaken for it, and having all the 

 destructive characteristics of its congener. An extract from this 

 plant is deadly poison, and produces all the symptoms exhibited 

 by the administration of strychnine. Amongst other useful drugs 

 Dr. Bancroft finds in the Queensland cassia an excellent substitute 

 for senna, in ironbark gum a very useful astringent, and in 

 sassafras bark a valuable aromatic. But the most interesting of 

 all Dr. Bancroft's observations are those which he has made on 

 some of the animal parasites affecting the human subject in 

 Queensland. This department of medical science is all the more 

 interesting and important when it is remembered how fearfully 

 some parts of the Colonies of South Australia and Victoria have 

 been scourged by hydatids, and how the influx of Chinese has 

 awakened such just apprehensions of the spread of leprosy. I 

 will give Dr. Bancroft's discovery in his own words : — " Another 

 parasitic disease spreading in the colony is the blood worm 

 Filaria sanguinis, of Lewis, known now to be associate I with a 

 numerous list of morbid conditions. This is an embryoo ic worm 

 about 100th of an inch long. The parent of it is located on 

 lymphatic vessels or in cysts measuring from three to four inches 

 long and about as thick as a coarse hair. It was first discovered 

 in Brisbane and was named by Professor Cobbold, Filaria 

 Bancrofti. It is now considered to be the cause of the elephant 



