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1 eaves unnecessarily. The market for them used to be chiefly in Germany, and the price 
in pre-war times varied according to quality and the state of the market, from about 
4d. to Is. a pound, packed for shipment. It is not yet known what the extent of the 
demand for this drug is, mainly, I believe, because of the difficulty which manufacturers 
in Europe have had in procuring regular shipments of uniform quality. This matter of 
supply of the leaves is referred to later on. Just a word of warning. The leaves are 
poisonous (though not violently so), bu t accident from them are very rare. Some years 
ago, two children in the Richmond River district chewed them, and suffered from general 
nervous and muscular derangement, accompanied by delirium. They recovered. 
The aborigines were long since aware that the leaves of this tree possess narcotic 
properties, but to the late Rev. Dr. Woolls belongs the credit, I believe, of first publishing 
the fact. It remained, however, for Dr. Joseph Bancroft, of Brisbane (at the suggestion 
of Baron von Mueller), to first work at the plant, to discover its value as an agent in 
ophthalmic surgery, and to introduce it to the profession. 
In the Rev. Dr. Woolls' " A Contribution to the Flora of Australia," p. '206, 
occurs the following passage (written soon after the year 1860) : " D. myoporoides . . . 
probably possesses deleterious properties. I have been informed by Miss Atkinson 
that the aboriginal natives used to prepare some stupefying liquid from it, and also the 
branches of the tree, when hung up in a close room, have had the effect of producing 
giddiness and vomiting in delicate persons." At another place he gives a rather fuller 
account : ' It has an intoxicating property. The aborigines make holes in the trunk 
and put some fluid in them, which, when drunk on the following morning, produces 
stupor. Branches of this shrub are thrown into pools for the purpose of intoxicating 
the eels and bringing them to the surface." The smell is faint and sickly, but with 
nothing like the intensity of pituri (D. Hopwoodii). 
Such I believe to be the first published account of any properties of the leave ; 
of this plant, and this is practically all that was known of its uses before the researches of 
Dr. Joseph Bancroft. Following are extracts from a paper published by that gentleman 
in October, 1877, after injection of an extract of the leaves under the skin : " Dogs 
and cats walk about in a helpless, blind manner, falling over the least irregularity of 
surface, and struggle, in the case of the dog, to get through and over all sorts of 
impassable obstacles. If let alone, they go to sleep. They seem blind, or nearly so, 
with a widely dilated pupil. . . I now tried it on some of my ophthalmic cases, 
and found an action of great rapidity. A very slight irritation is mentioned by patient ; 
after a drop is placed in the eye, but this passes away in a few seconds. ' In from five 
fteen minutes an ophtha'moscopic examination can be made. ... I use the 
Duboisia now regularly in place of Atropia, and in several extraction cases found it to 
act satisfactorily." 
The late Dr. Fortescue, of Sydney, has given an account of an experiment with 
3iy extract of Duboisia upon the normal eye, but it is too technical for reproduction 
here. 
