34 
president’s ADDRESS — SECTION B. 
about to submit show the state of our knowledge in regard to 
the various reputed drugs of Australian indigenous growth. It 
must be at once confessed that, with the exception of eucalyptus 
oil (dealt with under a separate heading), either our plant products 
have not been worked at with that exhaustiveness, and to that 
finality, which are necessary for the inclusion of any drug in the 
Pharmacopoeia, or, having been thoroughly investigated, are found not 
to be really valuable additions to (or substitutions for) the present 
pliar macopoeial drugs. An officinal drug must maintain its positiou by its 
own merits, its position is always liable to be challenged, and, like an 
elected member of a legislature, it is always liable to lose its place to 
a substance which has obtained the suffrages of medical men. No 
amount of sentiment or special pleading will by themselves secure 
the inclusion of any native drug on the official list. ¥e should there- 
fore go steadily on investigating our native plants, isolating active 
principles, and subjecting them and the crude drugs to therapeutic 
tests. If any of our plants are proved to possess merit, they cannot 
be prevented from exercising their usefulness, and when the next 
opportunity for revision occurs, we may proudly offer our contribution 
to the Pharmacopoeia of the Empire. 
I now proceed to arrange the drugs in natural orders, and the 
orders in botanical sequence, hoping that this will be useful to the 
student. As a matter of convenience I have included in the list 
certain plants which have formed, or should form, the subject of 
chemical investigation for active principles, whether the principles may 
or may not he likely to possess therapeutic value. 
Magnoliacece. — We have two species of Grimy s (D. aromatica , 
E. v. M., and D. dipetala , E. v. M.). It is probable that one or both 
possess properties analogous to Winter's bark ( D . Winter i , Eorst). 
The matter is worth investigation. The latest research on the bark of 
D. Winteri is by Arata and Can z oner i. # 
Men i sperm aceee — Dr. T. L. Bancroftf lias partially examined 
Peri campy l its incanus , Miers. ; Sar copet alum Harveyanum, E. v. M., 
and Stephan ia liernandiwfol ia 3 Walp.,andhis physiological experiments 
on frogs with extracts of the plants are full of interest. Rennie and 
E. E. Turner J have found picrotoxin or a mixture of that substance 
and picrotoxinin in the roots of the S/ephania . Anamirta cocculus 
berries (known in commerce as Cocculus indicus) contain quite a 
number of alkaloids and bitter principles, and a chemical investigation 
of our Menispermaceie might perhaps include their fruits. 
Malvaceae . — A further examination of the bark of Adansonia 
Gregorii , E. v. M., the A ustralian Baobab, in which (as also in 
A. digitata ), Wittstein§ found adansonine (? an alkaloid) would 
appear to be desirable. 
Jiutacece . — A very interesting genus, both to the chemist and 
physiologist, is Xanthcxylon. X. fraxincitm , Willd., is the Prickly' 
Ash of North America, which is officinal in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia. 
The alkaloid (xanthoxyline) it contains is stated to be identical with 
* Gazetta, xviii., 527 ; Journ. Chern. Soc., lviii., 405. 
f Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., 2, iv., 10G3 (1889) ; Proc. R.S. Qd., viii. (1890). 
X Proc. E.S. S.A., xvii., 186. 
gViertdj. sclir. f. Pharin., iv., 41; also “Organic Constituents of Plants 
(Mueller’s trans.), p. 6. 
