The natives make great use medicinally of the various species of eucalyptus. The leaves of _Eucalyptus tetradonta_ are made into a drink for fevers and sickness with headache, etc. The _Eucalyptus globulus_ recently introduced into civilized medicine comes from Australia. _Plectranthus congestus_, _Pterocaulon glandulosus_, _Gnaphalium luteo-album_ (several of this species are used in European medicine in bronchitis and diarrhœa, and one of them is called “Life Everlasting”), _Heliotropium ovalifolium_, and _Moschosma polystachium_, are all used in the medical practice of these despised aborigines, and are probably quite as valuable as the majority of the herbs recommended in our old herbals and pharmacopœias. The aborigines of the north-western provinces of South America have long been famous for their extensive knowledge of the properties of medicinal plants, and even now they possess secrets for which we may envy them.[80] The arrow-poison used by the Indians of the interior is made from a plant of the strychnos family. Those of the Pacific coast prepare a poison from the secretion exuding from the skin of a small frog; this by a certain process of decomposition they convert into a powerful blood-poison. It is said that when these tribes were preparing poisons for use in time of war, it was their ancient practice to test their efficacy on the old women of the tribe, and not on the lower animals, exhibiting in this respect a superior knowledge of toxicology than is shown by those pharmacologists of our own day who test on animals the drugs they propose administering to man. Mr. R. B. White, in his notes on these aboriginal tribes, says that the Indians in the State of Antioquia were in the habit of poisoning the salt springs in the time of the Spanish invasion; they covered the spring with branches of a tree called the “Doncel,” which imparted such venomous properties to the water that after a lapse of three hundred years it still retains its deadly properties; when animals now get at the water, as many as three horses have been known to be killed in one night by drinking it.[81] The study of the means of capturing fish by poisoning the water—a practice which is universal amongst savages—must have led to many observations on the properties of poisonous plants. Some considerable knowledge of the risks and uses of various leaves and berries must have been acquired in this way. The people of Timor-laut intoxicate fish with rice steeped in poisonous climbing plants.[82] The aborigines of the River Darling, New South Wales, feed their very sick and weak patients upon blood drawn from the bodies of their male friends. It is generally taken raw by the invalid, sometimes however it is slightly cooked by putting hot ashes in it.[83]