NEW NATIVE MEDICINAL PLANTS OF QUEENSLAND. 



By JOSEPH LAUTERER, M.D. 



[Read before the Royal Society of Queensland, September 12, 1896.] 



In the United States of America great efforts are made by the 

 leading authorities in Medicine and Chemistry to utilize for 

 practical purposes every native plant endowed with medicinal 

 virtues or containing any active principle. The Americans 

 have indeed gone so faj: as to put into the Pharmacopoeia and to 

 introduce into commerce on a large scale preparations of Ameri- 

 can plants said to be possessed of medicinal properties, but really 

 altogether void of active principles. It is an established fact 

 that for instance the Witch Hazel, RamameUs vinfinica, a shrub 

 which blossoms late in autumn and grows abundantly in my 

 garden in Germany, does not contain any active substance, except 

 a very small amount of tannic acid, though different kinds of 

 elegant preparations are thrown on the market by the well- 

 knoAvn firm of Park, Davies and Co., Detroit. 



In Australia the native medicines are neglected. The gums 

 of the Eucalypts, the very best healing astringents in the world, 

 are called by the misnomer of " kino," and the special tannins 

 contained in them striking blue with ferric salt is still called 

 kinotannic acid, which really is one of the very worst tannins 

 met with in the vegetable kingdom. There is one excuse for the 

 evident neglect of our Australian medicines : the chemistry of 

 our plants is only very superficially known. 



The tannins have been worked out to a great extent by the 

 author of this paper, and a new series of experiments concerning 

 the tannins of the Eucalypts has been started lately by him. 

 For external use a soap has been devised as the best means 

 to act on a diseased skin. 



Mr. Btriiver manufactured three different kinds of Eucalyp- 

 tus soap for the author of this paper. Ordinary soap is made 

 from 70 to 75 parts of fat, 40 to 45 parts of water, and 10 parts 

 «of soda. 



