98 NATIVE MEDICINAIi PLANTS OF QUEENSLAND. 



epidemies of croupy inflammation of the lungs, with alarming 

 symptoms, ending in a sudden crisis for the better on the seventh 

 day, but often ending fatally. These epidemic pneumonics 

 are never met with in Queensland, and many other instances of 

 a similar nature could be pointed out before a medical public. 

 Now, if we have less diseases here we ought to be satisfied with 

 our old European remedies, and ought not to look for more. It 

 is true ; but there are two reasons why we ought to investigate 

 our native medicines. Their commercial value must for the 

 first reason be utilised for a country where money is scarce just 

 now. Some Australian plants have already a world-wide 

 renown. The oils of the Eucalypts are sold all over Europe 

 and America, and they are largely used in diseases of the 

 respiratory organs. I am sorry to say that on the European 

 markets the oils are chiefly judged by the percentage of euca- 

 lyptol, which does not dry up as a varnish when heated. All oils 

 not containing a high amount of eucalyptol are rejected, and our 

 Queensland oils are poor of it. The gums of Eucalypts are 

 more and more praised in Europe for their astringent properties, 

 and the leaves of Duboisia myoporoides, in Martindale's Extra 

 Pharmacopceia — " erroneously termed Pituri," are imported as 

 an eye remedy into all civilised countries. A second reason for 

 investigating our native medicines is given by the fact that we 

 can always obtain them at a lower price and in a fresh state, 

 and besides we might have the good luck to find something 

 which could prove more useful than the drugs of the old country. 

 Might not some truth be contained in the doctrine of my world- 

 renowned long-named countryman Philippus Aureolus Theo- 

 phrastus Bombastus Paracelsus von Hohenheim who lived 400 

 years ago "? Every country, he said, has its diseases and every 

 disease has its best remedy growing near the place where it 

 occurs. The Almighty has given us reason and senses to find 

 the medicine and it is useless to import it from other parts of 

 the world. As a starting point for fresh investigation we may 

 try to improve the knowledge of the native remedies already 

 used, and the Eucalypts have to stand in the first rank. Their 

 dried leaves possess many medicinal properties. They do not 

 contain any alkaloidal principle, their action is due only to the 

 essential oil. Thev can be used for smoking in cigarettes for 



