i 5 2 EUCALYPTUS. 



All preparations are marked by a peculiar strong odor, suggesting 

 the essence. If a few drops of any Kucalyptus preparation are placed on 

 the tongue, a sensation of pungent freshness, soon followed by one of 

 warmth, is experienced, the latter being due to an hypersecretion of the 

 salivary and buccal glands. Its ingestion into the stomach creates a 

 similar sensation of warmth, and besides, an emission of its characteristic 

 odor by the mouth. The urine reveals a faintly violet coloration, indi- 

 cating the passage of the drug through the system. 



The fact that Kucalyptus, like balsams and essences, impregnates the 

 mucous membranes in particular, suggests at once the utility to be de- 

 rived from the drug in in flammatory conditions of the respiratory and 

 urinary mucous passages. 



Larger doses of the drug produce headache, malaise, general fatigue 

 and prostration, and, even, as shawn by Gimbert, fatal results in animals 

 b} T paralyzing the reflex motor centres of the spinal cord. 



From the manifold therapeutic applications which Kucalyptus has 

 found in the course of time, we will only review such as have earned a 

 claim to our confidence. 



Rumel is to be credited with having first suggested the idea of plant- 

 ing the tree with the view of thus ridding a territory from the baneful 

 marsh and malarial fevers. The same object led to its cultivation in the 

 Knglish Cape colonies and the western shores of Middle Italy. It was 

 this ingenious transplantation of the Australian tree to the vicinity of 

 Rome that enabled the Trappist of Trois-Fontaines to recover and render 

 inhabitable a vast area formerly exposed to the ravages of malaria. It is 

 highly probable that the disinfectant power of the tree depends upon its 

 capacity to absorb large quantities of water from the surrounding soil, 

 and to thus dessiccate the germs of malaria. The success of this soil 

 medication in Italy, Algiers, Cuba and South America naturally sug- 

 gested the employment of Kucalyptus in intermittant fever. Of an in- 

 fusion of 8 grammes (2 drachms) of the leaves in 120 grammes (5 oz.) of 

 water, a cupful is usually given twice daily. It is well to remember the 

 antiperiodic virtues of Kucalyptus in cases in w 7 hich quinine has either 

 failed or is contraindicated. In fact, Kucalyptus is better borne by the 

 digestive system that quinine, fatigues the stomach less and is far less ex- 

 pensive. Still it w r ould be wholly erroneous to think of any possible 

 therapeutic equivalence of Kucalyptus and quinine. An honorable and 

 noteworthy rank as an auxiliary remedy in miasmatic fevers is all that 

 can with propriety be claimed for the preparations of Kucalyptus. 



This statement that Kucalyptus asserts its antipyretic character 

 also in the thermal elevations of tuberculosis and cancer appears, if 

 true, to us all the more noteworthy, as its virtues in this direction have 

 been almost generally overlooked. 



Important as the antimiasmatic and general antipyretic properties of 



