10 



" Professor (now Senator) Torelli has also written on the subject 

 of the Eucalyj)his. He sums up by declaring that the much- 

 vaunted merits of the Eucalyptus have not been established. 



" The Eucalyptus is killed by the cold when the thermometer 

 marks 12° F. below freezing. The species that have shown the 

 greatest resistance to cold are the Globulus (blue gum), viminalis 

 (swamp gum), rostrata, robusta, meliodora, resinifera (red gum), 

 pcmiculata, saliyna, coriacea, and cornuta. 



" E. Globulus is considered by all as the species that possesses 

 hygienic properties in the highest degree, resinifera coming 

 next. Marquis Garzoni has succeeded in growing the prodigious 

 number of 93 species on his farm near Viareggio, Italy. 



Wallace S. Jones, 

 • _ , Consul-General." 



" Rome, March 19, 1894. 



That malaria is produced by the presence of an organism in the 

 blood is now undoubted. But this is not Bacillus malaria! as 

 supposed by Crudeli, but one which is rather animal than vege- 

 table. The true parasite was observed in 1880 by Laveran, a 

 French Army Surgeon serving in Algeria. It is to Hanson and 

 Koss we owe the demonstration of the fact that it is carried by 

 mosquitoes to healthy persons from those who are suffering from 

 Je disease. It has been proved that persons efficiently protected 

 from mosquito-bites escape its attacks, even in the most malarious 

 districts. 



Malaria is therefore not due to an " emanation " in the air or to 

 something derived from either soil or water, but to a blood parasite 

 carried from one individual to another. We now see that the 

 attempt to check it by planting any kind of EucalyjJtus was futile, 

 m some cases It may indirectly have done good : (i.) by drying up 

 pools in which mosquitoes breed ; (ii.) by forming a screen which 

 Htopped their flight. In others there is reason to think that it 

 actually did harm At the request of the Government of Lagos a 

 good deal of trouble was taken to introduce tropical species into 

 the colony. But it was found that buildings near which they 

 were planted actually became malarious. The tree harboured 

 mosquitoes which otherwise the sea breeze would have blown 



\..t^^ ""^^""^Tf^}? *^^ wholesale planting of Blue Gum has not 

 been rewarded by the production of useful timber. As the results 

 of his experiments at the Oalifornian University, Berkeley, Cali- 

 fornia, Professor Hilgard stated :— 



''^}^J^ucahjptus is a fast growing tree, but when it comes to 

 the utilisation of the wood, the fast growing gum is a failure. It 

 1894.) ^''^'''''^^ ''^^y-" (^«i^« Agricultural Journal, Nov. 1, 



The moral of the whole story is the unwisdom of relying on a 

 plausible nostrum for the remedy of an evil without accurate 



