. They were not able to
verify a single fact in support of Lancisi's theory, while they found many
of the same nature as that of Cistema, and which have resulted in
overturning the theory entirely.

[Footnote 1: Della influenza dei boshi sulla malaria dominante nella
regiona marittima della provincia di Roma. Annali di Agricoltura, No. 77,
1884. Roma: Eredi Botta.]

It has also been thought possible to practice drainage from above by means
of plantations of certain trees which would draw considerable moisture
from the earth, a method which might really be serviceable in some
malarious districts. But in accordance with the idea that malaria is a
product of paludal decomposition, the trees selected have almost always
been the _eucalyptus_. It has been maintained that trees of so rapid a
growth ought to drain the soil very actively, and also that the aroma of
their foliage ought to destroy the miasmatic emanations. I have hitherto
been unable to verify a single instance of the destruction of malaria by
eucalyptus plantations, but I do not consider myself justified in denying
the facts which have been stated by others. There is nothing to oppose the
admission that these plantations, when properly made, may sometimes have
been of great utility. I maintain frankly, however, that they have not
always been so, and that it is necessary to guard against the
exaggerations into which some have allowed themselves to fall in recent
times. Such exaggerations might have been avoided if, instead of talking
about these plantations on the basis of a theoretical assumption, the
results only had been studied in places where the eucalyptus abounds. It
would then have been known that even in the southern hemisphere, the
original home of the eucalyptus, there are eucalyptus forests which are
very malarious. This fact has been demonstrated by Mr. Liversige,
professor in the University of Sydney, Australia. Among us also, although
everybody was convinced by the statements of the press that the locality
of the Tre Fontaine, near Rome, had been freed from malaria by means of
the eucalyptus, people were disagreeably surprised by an outbreak of very
grave fever occurring throughout the whole of this colony in 1882, a year
in which all the rest of the Roman Campagna enjoyed an exceptional
salubrity. If, alongside of these hygienic uncertainties, we place the
agricultural uncertainties, we must conclude that it is necessary to
contend strongly agains