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Show Caution Urged to Avoid Poison Ivy Poison ivy season is here again. You may have handled poison ivy last year and escaped without with-out an itch, but don't push your luck. No one is permanently immune im-mune to poison ivy, oak or sumac, the American Medical Association reminds. Your next meeting with this pesky plant could take place in your own yard, as well as in the woods and fields. Poison ivy, oak and sumac have appeared in city guldens. Poison ivy sometimes some-times forms a beautiful vine up the side of a house. Poisonous oils from these plants can come your way in the smoke of a neighbor's trash fire, or on your dog's coat. If you can detect poison plants, you can often avoid them. Poison ivy and its close kin, poison oak, are three-leafed plants which may grow as low bushes or climbing vines. They may be mixed with honeysuckle and other climbers. Poison sumac, an eastern swamp plant with seven to thirteen leaflets and small w hite berries, usually grows as a shrub. If you have been exposed, carefully remove your clothes and thoroughly wash all affected areas with warm water and soap. Sponge with a 50 to 70 per cent alcohol solution. Using rubber gloves, clean your clothes in an oil solvent and soapy water. Dry them in the sun. Ivy, oak and sumac poisoning start with itching and redness within a few hours to several days after exposure. Watery pimples appear. There is no cure for the big itch. Wet dressings of boric acid or Fpsorn salts solu- , lion bring some relief. Calamine lotion reduces itching. If the inflammation in-flammation is extensive, see your phsycian. If you know that you will be near poison plants or working with them, have your druggists make a 10 per cent sodium perborate per-borate ointment and apply on exposed skin. After contact with the plant, wash off ointment oint-ment and scrub all clothing even shoelaces. June, 1978 Frank Chappell Science News Editor AMA |