Nor was it forgotten in the dressing of the person, or thought a mean 

 ornament for the embellishment of female beauty, although, indeed, an imitation 

 of the kind, now known as " artificial flowers," may have been more highly prized 

 than the reality. However, Ealeigh shall speak on the subject : 



" A gown made of the finest wool, 

 Which from our pretty lambs we'll pull j 

 A belt of straw and ivy buds, 

 With coral clasps and silver studs. 

 And if these pleasures may thee move, 

 Come live with me, and be my love." 



In old times the plant had some repute in medicine, but is now of no repute 

 at all. Those who have observed how freely green ivy burns in a fire of garden 

 rubbish may reasonably expect that, by the evident presence in the plant of oily or 

 resinous substances, it may some day prove to be serviceable in the arts. Cato 

 saith that wine put into the ivy cup will soak through it, by reason of the 

 antipathy that is between them; this antipathy being, as he says, "very great 

 between wine and ivy, for that one who hath a surfeit by drinking wine will find 

 his speediest cure if he drink a draught of the same wine wherein a handful of ivy 

 leaves had been steeped." Many experiments have been made for the purpose 

 of determining its power to modify the intoxicating power of wine, but with no 

 definite result such as would indicate the existence in the plant of any substance, 

 like thein for example, which might act upon the nervous system to prevent or 

 delay intoxication. The leaves have a nauseous taste and stimulate the salivary 

 glands, and when a strong tea, made from them, is taken inwardly it acts as a 

 mild purgative. In olden times the leaves were applied to ulcers and used as 

 poultices, but they are now probably never used for these purposes at all. A 

 decoction of ivy leaves was in olden times esteemed as a sudorific, and an infusion 

 of the berries in vinegar was considered a fine antidote to agues, fevers, and dis- 

 orders of the digestive organs, and, above all, against "the plague," the bitterness 

 no doubt being the more useful than in these days of cleanliness and quinine can 

 be imagined. Curiously enough, a cup made of the wood of the ivy was con- 

 sidered capable of imparting to any liquor poured into it a power of averting any 

 disease; a prefiguring of the "bitter cup " made of quassia wood (?), which of late 

 years has become a shop article. 



The only preparation of ivy known to chemists for useful purposes is hederic 

 acid, which is thus described in the English Cyclopedia : " An acid, of uncertain 

 composition, extracted from ivy-berries. It crystallises in needles or thin plates, 



J 



I 

 I 



a , 



I 





