294 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION R. 
The latter is very resinous (sic) and little soluble in water.” Prom a 
medicinal point of view the true kinos (as well as rhatany and 
catechu) are very bad drugs. The astringent contained in them (the 
kinos) consists mostly of kino-tannic acid, which sticks only slightly 
to the mucous membranes, and is not even borne well by a weak 
stomach. If administered in an alcoholic solution the catechin and 
kinoin tall out in the organs of digestion as a strange body, having 
no affinity to albumen or gelatine, and only irritating the diseased 
inside of* the bowels. The true kinos have nearly vanished from the 
medical practice on account of this, and in styling our Eucalypti and 
Angophora gums as kinos a blemish was attached to them from the 
first moment. 44 Have we not too many kinos already ! Must we have 
another one from Botany Bay ?” This was the outcry of the European 
pharmacists ; and still how little did our Myrtacese gums deserve such 
a slander ! Containing a noble tannate derived mostly from gallic 
acid, and being stained blue by ferric acetate, they unite easily and 
quickly with albumen and gelatine, and have the virtue to stick firmly 
to the mucilaginous membranes. Mouth, digestive organs, bronchial 
tubes, larynx, and nose are as kindly affected by the Eucalyptus gums 
as the whole skin of the body. The best Eucalypti gums are those 
containing a highamountof a kind of arabin, differing from true arabic 
acid in many respects. Still most pharmacists just reject those gums on 
account of their “ insolubility in alcohol.” The false terminology did 
not affect the pharmacists alone ; it acted on the brain of the scientific 
chemists too. Nearly all the authors on the chemistry of Eucalypts — 
from the old writers up to Heckel and Schkgdenhauffen, in Marseilles, 
and to the recent Sydney chemists — speak of 44 kino-tannic acid” and 
“catechin” as occurring in the Myrtaceous gums, though not the 
slightest trace of these derivatives of proto-catechuic acid (stained 
green by ferric acetate) is to be found in them. Grimwade excepted, 
no modern writer on the subject laid any weight on the fact that the 
Myrtaceie gums form blue precipitates (if properly diluted) with ferric 
salts, and none of them seems to be aware that they yield only 
pyro-gallic acid by dry distillation, and no catechol. 
Ellagic acid, though nearly insoluble in alcohol, was mistaken for 
catechin, as in the instance of the Angophora gums, and of those of E. 
metadata, E. corymlosa, and many others. Ellago-tannic and euealypto- 
tannic acid — nearly related (as (xritnwade alone states) to querci-tannic 
acid — were misrepresented as 44 kino-tannic acid.” Gallic acid was 
neglected allogcther. A large number of gums has been worked out 
in this way since 18S6, in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society oE 
New South Wales, by Maiden, who gave an able classification of the 
gums, dividing them into three groups: (L)The gummy group, the gums 
of which contain no less than 40 per cent, of arabin ; (2) the ruby 
group, the gums of which are entirely soluble in cold water and cold 
alcohol ; (3) the turbid group, -whose members are soluble in hot 
water or in hot alcohol, but the solutions become turbid on cooling. 
I. The gummy group is represented in the Moreton Bay district 
by Eucalyptus siderophloia , E. crebra , E, resinifera , and E. saliyna, 
E. siderophloia , Benth. — From wounds in the deeply-furrowed, 
black, tough, heavy bark a gum plentifully exudes in long tears, pale 
and yellow at first, but soon darkening into bright red, brown, and 
black, and then becoming less and less soluble. It has a specific 
