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who is quoted in Charcot's treatise of medicine, used to give to this symptom a great importance in diabetes, 
and to say that it had often helped him to diagnose unsuspected cases. The most probable explanation of 
this occurrence is that the quantity of glucose being diminished by eucalyptus treatment, sexual power 
ia restored ; another possible explanation is that as eucalyptus oil is known to have a marked action on 
the nervous system, it may affect this function directly, and, in fact, act as an aphrodisiac. Mr. J. H. 
Maiden, in his book," The Useful Native Plants of Australia," 1889, pp. 256 and 257, quoting the TJterapeutic 
Gazette, compares the essential oil of eucalyptus in its action to that of Conium maculatum, and that 
overdoses produce similar results; also that a strong cup of coffee is an antidote. 
As diabetes and glucosuria are not at all well understood, surely there is room in London hospitals 
to make a proper investigation of well selected cases of diabetes, and subject them to treatment with 
eucalyptus leaves, and, if possible, to do so with those of different species. According to the work above- 
named of Mr. Maiden's, the essential oil of the different species appears to vary very much indeed, in both 
quantity and quality, being sometimes quite different from one another. 
At any rate, the leaves of the common kind, E. globulus (blue gum), which is very rich in oil, and 
those of E. diwrsicolor-E. colossea or " Karri," ought be tried, as the latter is the species that has 
attracted such notice in Teneriffe during the past year. 
The fact that it has been used in this island as a decoction and not as an infusion, as hitherto, ought 
to be borne in mind, as possibly other active bodies in eucalyptus leaves may be extracted by the prolonged 
boiling to which they are submitted. 
On the evidence to be culled from the preceding pages, it appears to be largely 
impossible to determine the oil best suited for medicinal uses. 
On the one hand, we have by far the greater number of witnesses working on 
oils rich in eucalyptol, and these state that they find benefit from prescribing it in 
certain diseases. But they do not produce evidence of having made comparative 
tests with oils containing phellandrene. Neither did they experiment with the pure 
eucalyptol. Their evidence, therefore, while proving a certain value for oil containing 
from 50-60 per cent, of eucalyptol, does not prove that the curative property was due 
to the eucalyptol or to the balance of the other 40-50 per cent, of constituents. 
On the other hand, we have the opposing evidence, which maintains that the 
original reputation of eucalyptus oil was built on an oil containing phellandrene and 
eucalyptol, and that the rubifacient qualities of eucalyptus reside almost exclusively 
in the terpenes, phellandrene, pinene, and sesquiterpene, and that public experience 
of sixty years supports the claim of superior medicinal virtue for phellandrene eucalyptol 
oils as compared with oils rich in eucalyptol and devoid of phellandrene. It is 
maintained that pure phellandrene must be considered as only too strong for internal 
use when not associated with a certain percentage of eucalyptol, and not as in any 
sense injurious. 
Then we have the independent witnesses who give evidence from the 
bacteriological point of view, which strongly supports the contention that the antiseptic 
virtue of eucalyptus oil is mostly associated with the terpenes, being due mainly 
to ozone developed by their oxidation. 
In conclusion, we have judgments in the case given by J. C. Umney, of London, 
M. Holmes, of Kew Gardens, Baker and Smith, of Sydney, who have reviewed tne 
evidence as far as they knew it. They have judged " that the constituents upon which 
the therapeutic action of eucalyptus oil depends cannot be stated." 
