244 On Diseases and Occidents of Farmers. 



sylvania, which are known to be poisonous, if either 

 externally apj)hed, or internally taken ; HK^re may be 

 doubtless found in different parts of the continent.* The 

 vouth of a family ought to be cautioned against eating 

 any wild plant, the quality of which they are ignorant of. 

 After the offensive substance has been discharged from 

 the stomach, strong coffee, and brandy, or v\hiskey diUit- 

 ed with water, should be given to settle the stomach. 



The plaiit emphatically called poison-vine, or poison- 

 creeper, (rhus radicans) which is universally diffused over 

 this country, poisons some persons by merely remaining 

 a \.<t\\' minutes in its vicinity : or by being exposed to its 

 smoke when burning. The symptoms produced are, 

 swelling of the face, hands and arms, or feet, and a pain- 

 ful eruption on the skin. The usual remedies are an- 

 nointing the parts with cream, or washing them with lead 

 water. Dr. Dewees informs me, that the best remedy 

 he ever used, is strong mercurial ointment. If any watery 

 pustules form, they must be opened with a needle, and 

 the water absorbed by a soft cloth. f 



* The datura stramonium obtained the trivial name of James- 

 town weed, (corruptly Jimson) from the circumstance of a num- 

 ber of English soldiers having been poisoned after eating the 

 leaves boiled. This took place soon after the settlement of 

 Virginia. In Charleston, S. Carolina, a child was last year kil- 

 led by eating the flowers of the fragrant yellow jasmine, {^Big- 

 nonia semper virens.^ 



t Mercurial ointment ought never to be made with the assis- 

 tance of turpentine, to promote the extinguishing of the mercury, 

 as such ointment invariably produces inflammatory pimples on 

 the skin, and would increase the disease produced by the poison 

 vine. Mr. W. Anderson of New York, the Amer. editor of that 

 excellent work, Cooper's Surg. Diet, says, that the preparation 

 of mercurial ointment will be greatly expedited by rubbing the 

 mercury in the first instance with a small proportion of goose 

 grease. One ounce of this article will be suflicient, with rub- 

 bing, for the space of one minute, to make the globules of the 

 quicksilver entirely disappear, and render it at once fit for 



