Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LVVarious
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899: Volume LV
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Of the prevailing "expansion" or territorial robbery fever
Mrs. Bishop said that we were coming to think only of markets and
territories, and to ignore human beings, and were breaking up, in the
case of a fourth of the human race, the most ancient of the earth's
existing civilizations without giving for our supposed advantage a
fair equivalent.
="Somewhat" Poisonous Plants.=--In Prof. B. D. Halsted's paper in the
State Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletins on The Poisonous
Plants of New Jersey, besides the descriptions of plants recognized as
poisonous internally and to the touch, a list is given of "many
somewhat poisonous plants." Among these the catalpa and ailantus
produce emanations that are disagreeable and sometimes poisonous, and
catalpa flowers, when handled, will produce an irritation of the skin.
The thorn of the Osage orange leaves a poisoned wound. The young
leaves of the red cedar and the arbor vitæ are irritating to the skin
and may produce blisters, and the pitch of the spruce causes itching.
Balm of Gilead may cause blistering. The green bark of the club of
Hercules is irritating to the skin. The herbage of oleander affects
some persons like poison ivy, the bark of the daphne causes blisters,
and the juice of the box produces an itching with many persons. To
some the herbage of the wild clematis is acrid and unpleasant. Many of
the wild herbs have acrid properties, among them skunk cabbage, Indian
turnip, cow parsnip, several of the mustards, and the juice of red
pepper and stonecrop. Garden rue and the short bristles of the borage
are irritating. Some persons have had their skin inflamed by handling
the garden nasturtium. Other plants not always pleasant to handle are
meadow-saffron bulbs, garlic, juice of bloodwort and celandine, the
smartweed, the herbage of the poke, monkshood, larkspur, bearberry,
some of the buttercups, anemone, star cucumber, various burs, daisy
flowers, hairy plants, the nettles, sneeze-weed, the corpse plant, and
some of the toadstools. Flax spinners have a flax poison, jute workers
a rash, hop pickers a disagreeable irritation of the hands, and the
grinders of mandrake root find the powder irritating to the face. It
is not unusual for persons who gather plants in field and forest to
receive sensations akin to those produced by mosquitoes, which are
often chargeable to the plants. Other animals than man are less
susceptible to the effects of contact poisons.
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