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

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

 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. Ramel touched with a few words on this subject (Revue maritime at 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, Baeckea and some allied genera are 

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

 Myrtacese 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 ; Srdly, especially the evolution of peculiar highly antiseptic volatile 

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

 Eucalyptus-leaves themselves not causing any noxious eflSuvia 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 placed in the 

 wards of continental hospitals, a measure initiated by Drs. Mosler and Groeze 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 e ach house h ad 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 t heir high oxydizing power e xemplified 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 Torelli, who has been commissioned to initiate the extensive culture of E. 

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

 among those, planted by Royal order in 1854, was about 10 feet high in 1878, showing a basal 

 circumference of eleven feet. But Dr. W. von Hamm of Vienna, who purposely visited Italy in 

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

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



