244 ODOEOGRAPHIA. 



incrustation. The oil of E. globulus from all these sources is by 

 no means uniform in character, some samples having a rank odour 

 like that of the leaves, others a camphoraceous but not unpleasant 

 odour, as if they had been rectified by re-distillation. Some 

 samples from the South of France possessed an odour of 

 turpentine. In those from Algeria and Malaga there is often a 

 savin-like odour, due perhaps to a still having been used for 

 eucalyptus after the distillation of savin. Eucalyptus oil is 

 largely used, as an inhalation, in diseases of the lungs. For this 

 purpose, oils of U. amygdalina and E. dumosa are preferred in 

 Edinburgh and elsewhere" (a remarkable fact, as the former oil 

 consists princixjally of phellandrene). " It is also remarkable 

 that much of the eucalyptol, that was first used in medicine, 

 consisted of the first portion passing over in the distillation of 

 the oil and contained a quantity of phellandrene. The evidence 

 therefore seems to point to the fact that oils containing 

 phellandrene are preferred for the treatment of lung disease, and 

 it is desirable that experiments should be made with this body, by 

 physiologists, in order to determine wdiether the properties of 

 eucalyptus are due to eucalyptol, phellandrene, or some other 

 ingredient of the oil, and it may be hoped that in the next 

 Pharmacopoeia, a product of definite composition, extracted from 

 eucalyptus oil, may take the place of an oil of unknown and 

 indefinite composition."* 



There is no difficulty in procuring phellandrene in a fair degree 

 of purity from E, amygdalina, and the oil is still sufficiently 

 plentiful. Also eucalyptol can easily be prepared in considerable 

 quantity from E. cneorifolia ; therefore the medicinal value of the 

 constituents of eucalyptus oil is a point which might easily be 

 settled by medical men. In any case, eucalyptol has a less- 

 agreeable aroma and flavour than eucalyptus oil itself, and a 

 manufacturer of perfumes might fairly estimate the value of an oil 

 by its fineness of odour, and not by its per centage content of 

 eucalyptol or any ingredient of inferior odour on the simple ground 

 of its therapeutic merit. Eucalyptol (or cineol) is obtainable from 

 the essential oils of various plants, and the more it is purified the 

 more it loses the characteristic odour of tlie source from whence 



* Opinion confirmed by Dott at Meeting of Pliarm. Soc, Edinburgh, 13th 

 Dec, 1893. Reported in Pharni. Journ., xxiv., p. 511. 



