STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
produce blindness for several hours or days; the irritation 
of the skin is very great. Sometimes the poison extends 
over the arms and body and legs; fever, headache and 
even delirium will affect the patient, as in cases of severe 
erysipelas. Where the constitution is at all unsound, the 
effects are worse to overcome, and it is one of the evils 
induced by the virus that it produces in many cases a 
chronic disposition to break out, year after year, at the 
time when the plant is in its most flourishing condition. 
This has generally taken place in June and July. Some 
homeopathists are said to treat the case with doses of Rhus 
Toxicodendron, according to their system; others again use 
beHadonna. Country doctors give alkalies—soda, ammonia— 
and cooling medicines. The old settlers apply the succulent 
juicy leaves and stalks of the wild Canadian Balsam 
(Impatiens fulva) and other cooling herbs with thick cream; 
but I should think that limewater, given with milk in- 
wardly and applied outwardly to the skin, as in burns, 
might prove a good remedy. Where the disease caused by 
this poisonous plant is so often met with in country places 
the most ready and certain remedies should be made known 
to the public. Physicians who have had no experience of 
the disease produced by the Poison Ivy are sometimes at a 
loss how to treat it successfully. 
Every one should be acquainted with the appearance of 
the Poison Ivy, so that it may be avoided when out in the 
country among weeds and thickets, rocks and waters. 
This wicked little plant is not without its attractions to 
the eye; it varies in height from about one foot to two, but 
will climb, when meeting with support, to ten and fifteen 
fect.* I have seen it against a stone building, growing along 
with the Virginia Creeper up to the windows of a lofty 
* This is the variety raddcans. 
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