EUCALYPTUS GLOBULUS. 



arboreous vegetation ever reared anywhere, even Pines or Oaks or other classes of leading trees 

 not excepted. Thus it has transformed, the features of wide formerly tree-less landscapes, has 

 already atForded in many places timber and fuel for rapidly increasing settlements, and rendered 

 also many a miasmatic locality permanently habitable. The sanitary influence of Eucalyjitus- 

 vegetation was surmised by more than one of the early Australian settlers, who however were 

 reluctant to place their conjectures on public record without positive investigations and final proof. 

 Mons. Eamel touched with a few words on this subject (Revue maritime et coloniale) in 1861, 

 but Sir William Macarthur was perhaps the first to argue, very many years ago, that our freedom 

 from ague here was mainly due to our extensive myrtaceous vegetation, in which the Eucalypts 

 are prominent, although species of Melaleuca, Leptospermum, Basckea and some allied genera are 

 also gregarious in many parts of Australia. The incontestable sanitary effect of these prevailing 

 Myrtaceee throughout Australia, except in some of the tropical coast-tracts, must be ascribed to a 

 complex of causes : 1st, the ready and copious absorption of humidity from the soil by Eucalypts 

 and closely allied trees ; 2ndly, their corresponding power of exhalation, much greater than that 

 of many other kinds of trees ; 3rdly, especially the evolution of peculiar highly antiseptic volatile 

 oil ; 4thly, the disinfecting action of the droj^ping foliage on decaying organic matter in the soil, 

 Eucalyptus-leaves themselves not causing any noxious efiiuvia through their own decomposition. 

 Thus during maceration, for artistic skeletonizing. Eucalyptus-leaves, unlike almost all other kinds 

 of foliage, giVe off no disagreeable odor, as first observed here by Mrs. Dr. Lewellin. The disin- 

 fecting and deodorizing virtue of the tree being unquestionable, it has even been jilaced in the 

 wards of continental hospitals, a measure initiated by Drs. Mosler and Goeze of Greifswald 

 and here insisted on by Dr. Alexander Buettner. The fresh bruised leaves can with advantage be 

 employed for the dressing of wounds to prevent or subdue septic inflammation, especially when no 

 other remedies are at hand. Possibly the Blue Gum-tree is even a better scavenger of back-yards 

 than a weeping willow, and in so far safer as it does not intrude into the foundations of buildings 

 and leaves no putrefying foliage. Indeed the sewage-question of cities in the warm temperate 

 zone would become very much simplified, if each house had at its rear the evergreen Eucalyptus 

 tree. Mr. Th. Taylor found that albuminous compounds could be preserved in water, which by 

 mere maceration of leaves of E. globulus had absorbed some of their oil and perhaps other 

 preservative particles, a few drops of oil added to water serving the same purpose. Other kinds 

 of volatile oils act very variously in this respect. To Bacteria and other micro-organisms 

 Eucalyptus-oil proves as fatal as Phenic Acid ; hence also, as Taylor observed, it may be injected 

 into the veins and arteries of cadavers for purposes of preservation. Flesh of any kind is as well 

 preserved by Eucalyptus-oil as by Creosote, while beef sprinkled with it will dry hard without 

 putrefaction. This writer is inclined to attribute the hygienic action of the oils of Eucalyptus and 

 Pines simply to their high oxydizing power exemplified in the decomposition of miasmata. He 

 recommends Eucalyptus-oil to be applied as an admixture to dressings in Gangrene. (See Report 

 of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, 1876, pp. 82-86.) 



Senateur Comte Turelli, who has been commissioned to initiate the extensive culture of E. 

 globulus on the malarian swamps near Rome, informs us, that at Gaeta a spechuen of this tree 

 among those, planted by Royal order in 18.54, was about 100 feet high in 1878, showing a basal 

 circumference of eleven feet. But Dr. W. von Hamm of Vienna, who purposely visited Ita,ly iu 

 the interest of Eucalyptus-culture, saw still larger trees at Lago Maggiore, one of which iu 1878 

 was fully 120 feet high, and was supposed to be 28 years old. At Hy6res a tree, raised from seed 



