

DISINFECTANTS. 185 



eucalypti are alleged to have produced a highly 

 beneficial effect. 



Preparations made from eucalyptus bark have also 

 come largely into use as disinfectants, and nobody 

 can deny that their penetrating odour, at any rate, 

 masks other smells of a more repulsive character: 

 frankly, however, we are of opinion, that it merely 

 masks them, but we do not believe that it in any way 

 alters their specific character. 



Here again we are brought face to face with a number 

 of considerations of too long and too technical a nature 

 to permit of our entering into them here. Suffice it to 

 say therefore, that deodorants are in no way necessarily 

 disinfectants. Indeed, in the proper and scientific sense 

 of the term, we fear it must be said that thus far no 

 regular disinfectant is known. This of course at once 

 raises the whole question as to what is infection? 

 Now, infection is generally believed to depend upon 

 the existence of certain living organisms, or specific 

 germs, conveyed in various sorts of ways, which are 

 not necessarily mal-odorous at all ; and the only means 

 by which disinfection can be said to be effected, is 

 by the destruction of these germs by some means 

 as for instance by a high temperature and the con- 

 sequent " sterilization " of the infective medium. 



Then as regards the supposed antimalarial properties 

 of eucalypti, this again raises a fresh cloud of hypo- 

 thetical points impossible to deal with here: much too 

 little being known of the real nature of malaria 

 to warrant any dogmatic assertions being attempted; 

 but if we might be allowed to express an opinion 

 upon this matter, we are inclined to regard these 

 trees simply as water-absorbing mediums, which by 



