EUCALYPTUS OIL AND THE INFLUENZA.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTITOR.”]
SIR,—That the use of eucalyptus oil is a valuable precaution. against influenza, we have little doubt, and our own experience is very much the same as that of the Royal Insurance Com- pany, Lombard Street, referred to in the Spectator of the 16th inst.
Two years ago, when the epidemic was so serious as to dis- organise some other large business establishments, we kept in each of our offices and seed-rooms steam spray-machines„ diffusing eucalyptus oil. We further supplied all our people twice a day with ammoniated tincture of quinine, in doses of two tea-spoonfuls in a wine-glass of water.
The almost complete immunity that our several hundred employes experienced in 1890 may have been a mere co- incidence. But the exemption from attack since we again commenced supplying them with quinine and eucalyptus oil a fortnight ago, at a time when many were falling ill, does make it impossible for us to doubt that this immunity is the beneficent result of true preventive remedies.
Whether the quinine or the eucalyptus has, with God's blessing, most to do with our freedom from an epidemic which was never so bad at Reading as at the present time, we must leave for others to prove who care to run the risk of neglecting either precaution.—We are, Sir, &c.,
Reading, January 20th. SUTTON AND SONS.
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