BY J. BANCROFT, ESQ., M.D. 69 
1866, was republished last year in the Australian Medical Gazette 
of Sydney, with the addition of a history of a new form of loss 
of sight (lasting for several weeks), which I alluded to under 
the term “ tick blindness,” as being caused by the bite of one of 
our poisonous scrub “ticks.” Concerning Pitwri, written im 
1872, I should remark that this plant is not yet in cultivation 
in any Australian gardens. Its properties are apparently iden- 
tical with those of tobacco, and it is nota little interesting to 
ethnologists—that these two plants, the only ones yet known to 
Science as containing the poisonous nicotine alkaloid, should 
have been found out by rude races of mankind—the American 
Indians discovering tobacco ages ago in North America; and, 
for a time that cannot be computed, the central Australian 
using the far more powerful Pituri leaf to chew before under- 
taking any unusual exploit. My investigation of Piturt with 
that of Baron von Mueller led me to discover, in 1877, the my- 
driatic Dubosia, perhaps the most powerful agent known as a 
paralyser of the internal muscles of the eye, and yielding a 
drug which is now employed by ophthalmic surgeons all over the 
world to decide the question of the fixity of the pupil. In this 
connection I may mention a convenient drug for the purpose of 
paralysing the accommodation of the eye, in the straw-coloured 
liquid to be derived by pounding and subsequent pressure, from 
the large tubular petals of the trumpet flower (Datura arborea) 
which is grown in Australian gardens. When these petals are 
chewed by children a very flushed state of the features takes 
place with delirium and uncontrollable muscular action. Chloro- 
form will put an end to this disorderly condition, and, as far 
as my experience goes, recovery may be expected. (I may here 
remark that the Indian and Colonial Exhibition Commissioners 
intend to forward a collection of Queensland drugs, which Mr. 
Staiger the chemist is engaged in preparing. Several of these 
drugs will be found very interesting and valuable additions to 
our native materia medica.) 
