BY JOSEPH LAUTEREK, M.D. 93 



Mr. Stniver was instructed by me to use only from 6 to 9 

 parts of soda to avoid any unnecessary irritation of the skin, and 

 he made an excellent improvement of his own by adding a large- 

 proportion of vegetable slime to the soap. The young branches 

 and twigs of Eucalyptus tereticornis, E. hamastoma, and othe 

 gum trees of the same group are exhausted with water, and this 

 water is used for exhausting more twigs, until it is saturated 

 with the constituents of the eucalypts. 



On addition of soda, of course, the tannic acid is precipitated 

 as sodium tannate, but it is still in an active state if it meets 

 albumen or gelatine or the glue-furnishing constituents of the 

 living skin. This sodium tannate all goes into the soap and 

 acts as a healing agent, which has already stood the trial. The 

 soap, as it is here exhibited, can be obtained from Mr. Strilver 

 on application. 



I now have to deal with the root of a leguminous plant — a 

 Galactia — named G. variam by our renowned Colonial Botanist, 

 Mr. F. M. Bailey. The plant occurs at Coolgarra, and was sent 

 to Mr. Bailey by Mr. Matthew Butler, J.P., who with the 

 specimens sends the following marvellous statement about its 

 medicinal properties : "On the 24th December, 1894, I was 

 sent for to make the will of an old man who was, as he thought, 

 dying from rheumatism. In a fit of abstraction he pulled up 

 the root and ate it. Fancying it gave him relief, he pulled 

 more, boiled it and drank the liquor. Within a week there was 

 a marked change in him, and now he is quite well and looks ten 

 years younger. A miner, who has been suftering for over two 

 years from a scrofulous affection took a decoction of this root 

 for a fortnight, and his skin seems now perfectly clear, and he 

 tells me he feels a new man. I had a slight touch of rheumatism 

 in the leg and tried a decoction of the root, with the result that 

 the pain has gone and the stiffness is wearing away." 



So far the report of Mr. Butler to the Colonial Botanist, 

 Mr. F. M. Bailey had, in November last, the kindness to put the 

 mateiial in my hands for a trial and for chemical investigation. 

 The root is fusiform, three to four inches long, grey outside, 

 yellow like a turnip inside, is destitute of a peculiar smell, but 

 has an acrid taste which made me suspect saponine in the drug. 

 On further examination I loinid the root to contain neitber 



