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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1952-5-14, Page 3New Hope For Poison Ivy )Sufferers . . Suffer from ivy, oak or sumac poisoning? Take hope. A new ointment made of zirconium, a relatively rare metal, )las' been found highly effective in curing the weeping, creeping, often agonizing itch. Experiments by two research sci- entists at the Syracuse University Student Health Service have shown that zirconium salt attacks .and neutralizes the powerful irritant known as "urgshlol" carried in the 'leaves, bark, berries and roots of poison ivy, oak and sumac, When the ointment was given in clinical treatment to 88 persons, 85 per cent were released with their case histories marked "treatment was effective!' As measured by the painstaking doctors who carried out the work, this means that the itching stopped, the rash stopped spreading, then began to scale off and disappear writes Bob Gilmore in "Country Gentleman," Since all of the patients weren't cured, the doctors warn that zir- conium ointment is not a complete- ly foolproof treatment. They feel certain, however, that it is " as good or probably better than any other treatment now available." Nevertheless, this should not be a signal to relax your vigilance against shrub poisoning w h e n you're in the fields or vacationing in strange territory. Since this kind of poisoning can be serious enough to require hospitalization, the wise thing is to keep your defenses high, Learn to recognize all of the poison shrubs. POISON SUMAC likes swampy ground. It grows in a wide strip down the Central States from Can- ada into the Deep South. fts leaves —which can be smooth-edged, saw- toothed or lobed—grow in clusters of from 7 to 13 reddish stems. The shrub ranges in height from 6 to 30 feet. Unmistakable identifying signs of the poison shrub are a faintly sulphurous wintertime odor and tiny, whitish berries that hang in grapelike clusters. Efforts to get rid of these plants are effective only if they're re- peated year after year. Grubbing them out may help for awhile, but the far-reaching rootlets have am- azing recuperative powers. The hormone -type weed killers make a quick kill when sprayed on the leaves. Repeated sprayings into the second and third seasons usually are necessary for lasting control. POISON OAK has the same small berries and three -leaf clusters as the ivy, but leaves are smaller, more thickly grouped. It grows mostly in the West and Southwest, sometimes in low, shrubby form, sometimes in high -reaching branch- es that vine among the trunks and foliage of trees. Thrives most hap- pily around rocks, trees and fence posts. The leaves turn color like s MERRY MENAGERIE "It's my hobby ... I collect them!" TIT FOR TAT The lecturer was a celebrated Doctor of Law, and his talk was to be on °Fools." The chairman who was something of a humorist, stood up to introduce him. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "We are now to have a lecture on fools by one" --he paused, and there has loud laughter before he • resumed—"of the wisest men in the country.", The lecturer then rose to speak, "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I ant not half so big a fool as the chairman"—ha paused, and again there ,was loud laughter— "would have you suppose." . those of poison ivy, the gorgeous hues enticing the unwary into picking an armful, POISON IVY grows all over the East, Middle West and South, can be vining or shrublike. In sum- mer its leaves, which always grow In threes, are bright green and shiny. When they bud out in spring or die off in fall the leaves, may be sleep, dark red or flaming red - orange. Usually smooth, they oc- casionally are hairy or fuzzy. The edges may be saw-toothed, smooth or lobed, Small light -green flowers, waxy white berries also help you identify the plant. Never allow leaves, berries, bark or roots of any of the three plants to touch your skin—all four parts carry the poisonous oil. If you burn the dried -out shrubs, avoid the smoke, which can carry the vaporized oil oyer a great distance, doing as much damage as 'contact with the plant, If itis impossible for you to avoid contact with the plants, wear fairly loose,' washable garments that cover arms and legs completely. Wear gloves. Don't wear pullover jackets or sweaters or tight trou- sers. Your struggles to remove them may do a thorough job of rubbing the oil into the skin. As a further safeguard, it may be wise beforehand to. rub zirconium oint- ment into face, neck and other soft, moist skin areas. When finished handlin gthe poison plants, have the clothes dry cleaned or wash them with hot water, and a laundry s o a p.Rinse thein thorqughly. Don't let contaminated clothing touch your skin and spoil all your earlier protective efforts, Modern Etiquette By Roberta Lee Q. Is it proper for a bride-to- be to write notes of thanks to all the guests who have attended a shower given in her honor? ' A. Her only real obligation is -write a note of thanks to the hos- tess. Notes to the guests are not necessary, although there is noth- ing improper about writing then' if she wishes. If she does not write them, she should entertain these friends at a luncheon, or tea, either before or after the wedding. Q. now does one know which name to mention first when intro- ducing two women? A. Always present the younger woman to the older, but if they are about the same age, it doesn't matter. Q. Is it correct to eat bananas with the fingers, when at the table? A. No; they should be skinned, placed on the dessert plate, and then cut with the side of the fork. Q. Just what is the proper way to eat a chicken leg? Is it all right, after cutting off most of the meat, to pick up the bone in the fingers for the rest? A. Not at the dinner table. The only exceptions are at certain res- taurants where such a practice is encouraged as a feature of the house, and, of course, at picnics, Q. How is the invitation to a house wedding worded? A. The same as that to a church wedding, except that the home ad- dress is substituted for the name of the church. And usually the initials R. s.v.p. are added to the bottom. Q. Should a house guest who has accidentally broken something replace it with another? A. If at all possible, this is the proper thing to do, Q. When a man asks a girl in advance what kind of flowers would she prefer for her evening dress, shou:d she make any suggestion, especially if the flowers site pre- fers are expensive? A. It would be better if she told him the color of her dress, and let him choose appropriate flowers. The florist can help him here. Q. When entertaining a house guest and an invitation is received to some social affair, is it permis- sible to ask the hostess for an in- vitation for the guest? A. Yes, provided the entertain- ment is general enough to make this acceptable to the hostess. • Ten Commandments For Safety For Everybody Who Handles A Gun 1. Treat every gun with the respect due a loaded gun. This is the cardinal rule of gun safety. 2. Carry only empty guns, taken down or with the action open, into your automobile) camp and home. 3. Always be sure that the barrel and action are clear of ob- structions. 4. Always carry your gun so that you can control the dirocdon of the muzzle, even if you stumble, keep the safety on until you are ready to shoot, 5. Be sure of your target before you pull the trigger. 6. Never point a gun at anything you do not want to shoot. 7. Never leave your gun unattended unless you unload it first. 8. Never climb a tree or fence with A loaded gun. 9. Never shoot at a flat, hard surface or the surface of water. l0. Do not mix gunpowder and alcohol. Tri -Dimensional Wheel—Something new in the projection of third - dimensional movies has been invented by Alberto and Adriano Betti. Instead of giving spectator glasses, the Roman twins syn- chronize a projector with this revolving glass disc which has alter- nating mirrors and transparent segments. Two images are project- ed through the disc, one reaching the viewing screen, left, while the second is. reflected by the mirrors toanother screen, right, and from this back,to the viewing screen, giving a third dimensional gppeoranceto the movie., TABLE dam Andrews Cereal foods are so highly nutri- tious that we shouldn't restrict their use to breakfast alone. There are many ways in which they can be utilized in delicious main dishes for other meals as well, The easy -to -make recipes I'm giving you today snake use of both cooked and uncooked wheat cereal, and I'm sure you'll find them really worth trying. * * * Wheat Fig Pudding 34 cup uncooked wheat cereal 556 teaspoon salt. 1 quart milk 2 eggs, beaten 3 cup molasses 1 cup finely chopped figs Scald the milk, shake in the whole wheat cereal gently and cook five minutes. Add figs, mo- lasses and salt and allow to cool; then add the well -beaten eggs. Turn into a buttered baking dish (we like a glass casserole) and bake in a moderate oven (350° F.- 375° :375° F.) for 45 minutes, Serve with a soft custard sauce. , Note: If preferred, the two egg whites may be reserved and made into a meringue with 2 table- spoons of granulated sugar and 56 teaspoon salt. Spread meringue on top of pudding after removing from oven and return to oven to set and delicately brown the me- ringue. Six servings. * * * Baked Ham Loaf 15 cups cooked wheat. cereal 2 pounds ground fresh lean pork 1 pound ground smoked ham 3/4 cup milk 2 eggs beaten Combine all ingredients very thoroughly, place in a loaf pan and bake at 400° F., for 35 min- utes, Raise temperature to. 450° F., and bake 10 minutes longer. Six to eight servings. * * * Wheat Sandwiches 4 slices cooked and molded wheat cereal f cup grated cheese 6 strips bacon 2 tomatoes Uncooked cereal Dust cooked cereal with un- cooked cereal and place on a greas- ed baking sheet. On the' slices of cereal place thinly sliced tomatoes, bacon cut in small squares and sprinkle ivith grated cheese. flake at 350°F., for 15 minutes. Four servings. * * * Pecan Loaf 1 cup hot cooked wheat cereal 1 teaspoon salt teaspoon pepper 1 cup milk 1 tablespoon butter or margarine 1 egg, beaten 1 cup fine cracker crumbs 1 cup chopped pecans Mix the cereal, nut meats, and cracker crumbs, then add beaten egg, milk and seasonings. Turn into a buttered loaf pan, pour melt- ed butter over the top and bake at 350° F., for 45 minutes. Turn out nu a platter and pour over it the following sauce. Garnish with watercress or parsey. Six to eight servings. Sauce for Pecan Loaf 3 tablespoons butter or margarine $ slices onion 3 tablespoons flour 154 cups milk 34 teaspoon salt yi cup chopped pimiento Cook onion in butter for 3-6 minutes, stirring constantly. Lift onion out, add flour anti mix well. Add milk gradually and stk until it thickens. Add salt and chopped pimiento, Serve very hot. • •* * * Spicy Raisin Pudding 3 cups cooked wheat cereal _-- cup sugar teaspoon salt 2 cups milk 2 eggs, beaten cup seedless raisins 11/4 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon vanilla Stir raisins into cooked cereal before. it becomes cold. Add sugar, salt and . cinnamon and place in buttered baking pan. Scald the milk, add beaten eggs and vanilla and pour over mixture in pan, stirring well. Bake at 350° F., until brown—about 45 minutes. . Serve with light cream, Eight servings. * * * Wheat Cutlets 1% cups cooked wheat cereal 3 tablespoons fat . % cup milk or water Bread crumbs 3 tablespoons flour 1 cup cooked meat or fish, minced fine 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce 54 teaspoon salt Dash of pepper Melt fat in pan and add flour; blend smoothly and add liquid. Cook three minutes, stirring con- stantly; add remaining ingredients. Spread on platter to cool. Divide into 12 portions, flatten into cutlet shape and sprinkle with uncooked cereal. Dip each cutlet into beaten egg, roll in uncooked cereal and fry in vegetable oil or vegetable shortening at 390° F. Serve hot with or -without marmalade. Six to eight servings. "An hour in a garden with a grub hoe in the heat of a summer's day will kill or cure man's ugliest tem- per." —Mary Gray Peck. Violin Music Helps' To Cure Disease Ever thought of music -aa a . means of achieving good health? Perhaps not, but doctors at Michigan University have been' conducting research into its healing properties with surprising results. they have found shat the violist is the finest instrument in the world for banishing headaches and can even reduce a tumour on the brain. And they recommend the harp as the beet instrument for reducing hysteria, Suffer from rheumatism? Then try listening to Mozart, say the doctors. His immortal music can help, the sufferer get rid of those awful twinges. Schubert's airs, they have discovered, can be very help. ltd if you suffer from sleeplessness, Would that account for his Un- finished Symphony? Those who have weak hearts are advised to try Handel's lovely music, And any unlucky victim of a persecution mania will find it greatly eased by a trumpet solo) The doctors don't explain why. Other experts claim to have proved after a long series of experi- ments that blood pressure in human beings ran be lowered by an "over- dose" of certain tunes on gramo- phone records. Subjects were plac- ed in an armchair in a darkened room and a gramophone record was played continuously for nearly an hour. After a certain march tune had been played nine or ten times, the r s "patients" expressed boredom m at the repetition, and a graph ap- paratus registered a definite and continued fall of blood -pressure. But 'when the record was changed to a solo by the late Dame Clara Butt, an immediate rise occurred. In Germany a man who was suffering from a mysterious form of blood -poisoning and seemed at the point of death was seen by a specialist who believed in the heal- ing power of harmony. IIe at once engaged a band to play attractive melodies softly beneath the sick- room window. The patient recover- ed. People suffering from emotional disturbances are said to feel much better after the playing of the Spring Waltz by Strauss. Two years ago experiments in the use of music in healing took place at a Surrey hospital. It was discovered that sleepy music at bed -time made some patients fight1. Lively music did not always relieve depression. In a United States' hospital for ex -Servicemen, a man who had lost his power of speech recovered it after being encouraged to hum a popular song, Sentimental Journey. A girl with an accordion was told by a hospital doctor that the music she played "was better than medicine' and led to many quick cures. An Italian physiologist found that music actually enlarged a man's brain. He also found that good music increased the functional activity of the skin. And tests on a dog showed that some tunes in• creased the elimination of carbonic acid and the consumption of oxy- gen. • "I have a garden, and when I stand in my garden, all around the is peace, and joy, and beauty; but if I leave my garden and go to tiie top of the hill, I can look out over the world and see contention, and intrigue, and bloodshed, and murder in dark places, and destitu- tion in tenements, pestilence and disease in the slums, sorrow and woe everywhere." Pubiius Cornelius Scipio. One British Town That Is Booming . . While high prices and Japanese competition threaten hard tines for the British textiles industry, one branch of it—tile manufacture of jute—is enjoying the biggest boom in its history. At Dundee, where the industry is centred,. 18,000 workers are now entplojed in the jute chills, and vacancies exist far many more, mainly as weavers, pa- tent spinners, and spreaders. During the past two years a minor industrial revolution has been going on in Dundee. Hun- dreds of obsolete jute machines have been scrapped, In their place engineers have set up the most up- to-date plant in the world. One mill alone, equipped with new cir- cular looms, is producing ten mil lion seamless jute bags a year. Jute is a fibre obtained from two varieties of a plant named the Cor - chores; which grows in India, chiefly in Bengal and Assam. It is a reed -like plant with a yel- low flower, and when the flower withers the plant is cut down and steeped, to separate the fibres from the rest of the stem. After a period of waiting, beat- ing and drying, it is carefully graded and packed, and then sent off by river to Calcutta, another big jute manufacturing centre and a constant rival to Dundee. Dundee cannot compare with India in the manufacture of the coaser type of jute products—sacks that hold coal and potatoes and wrap a hundred and one things w Pup g for export. But her special skill is unequalled when it comes to the making of finer products. Her workers spin the fibre on "flying frames," and then weave it on heavy looms. Prayer Carpets After jute cloth is made it is starched and calendered, with the result that it is flattened and glaz- ed. The yarn or cloth can be dyed or bleached. Millions of small, brightly -dyed prayer carpets for Moslems are sent from Dundee to the East. In the batching department the strands of Jute are shaken over g suction grid to remove dust, and tossed on to a spreader which dis- entangles th e raw material and cleans it in a "bath." It emerges in roils at the other end, each roll weighing 350 lb, These are passed by overhead railway to the prepar- ing department, where the air le conditioned and workers with long vacuum -cleaner- pipes remove more dust. Then to the carding machines, which "comb" the fibre; the draw- ing frames which draw it out .late lengths; and the spinning frames which convert it into yarn. In the beaming department this yarn is wound on to a huge "bob. bin" for supplyingthe looms. The middle or "bullseye" is til( finished cloth which passes dowel through the centre of the loom tt a department below, where it ii rolled into lengths for cutting an/ bottom -stitching into bags, MORE HOLLYWOOD' The malapropisms of. Hollywood big -shots are becoming a pretty threadbare subject, particularly since the public became aware that most of them originate in the minds of columnists and press agents. Here are three, however, which are believed to be authentic: 1. When 'The Best Years of Out Lives' was previewed, the producer assured an i ntervietver, "I don't care if this picture doesn't make a nickel, just so long as the whole United States sees it." 2. A Vine Street Voltaire ob- served, "Any man who gets him- self psychoanblyzed ought to have his head examined." 3. One producer borrowed a troupe of Indians from another, but when they reported for work he didn't think they looked fierce enough. He called his friend to protest. "I don't know what you are talking about," proclaimed the latter. "Those Indians come straight from the reservoir." Is Old Rat Race Starting Again? For the first time since before the war we have had some real evidence in the last few months that prices were easing, that there were hopes at last that inflation had been halted. That was the sort of change most of us were supposed to welcome, including the leaders of unionized labor. Without exception every fresh wage demand these people have been making with monotonous regular- ity since the war, has been based on the argument that they "were only trying to catch up with prices." Actually, of course, if the situation were examined, it would be found that wage rates were usually well in advance of prices. In any case, however ,so far as prices are concerned the race is over. For the time being at least prices are stationary or declining. If ever there were a hope for stabilization since the war, we have it now. But hopes of achieving this desirable stabilization can hardlybe considered very bright. Regardless, of lower prices and a three months' decline in the cost of living, another general round of wage increases is in prospect. What organized labor gets out of the current steel battle in the United States will certainly set the stage in Canada. As President Forsyth pointed out at the annual meeting of Dosco last week, "there is no indication that those who formulate the policy of the trade unions have yet become convinced that the interests of their membership may best be served by consolidating their gains rather than by seeking to extend them." H. G. Hilton, president of the big Steel Co. of Canada, in his annual report to shareholders this week in Hamilton said this: "Every time since V -J Day that an important union has succeeded in pushing up wage rates, there has been a general scaling up of practically all industrial wages." And if industrial wages go up, costs of industrial goods go up too. The sequence is as inevitable as night and day. Only if production increases in proportion to wages could it be otherwise and the actual record, unfortunately, offers no real hope of that. So if we have unwise wage demands now, the stabilization hope will quite probably be dashed and the old rat race will start again,— Froth The Financial Post. New Organdy Can Take It; Yet- Looks .Frazzle BY EDNA MILES ORGANDY has taken a new lease on life. Not that it has ever gone out of circula- tion; it's been here right along. But now, it has new finishes anti uses. It's a part of interior dec- orating, it's an important part of fashion, it even goes to the head in ethereal bits of mil- linery, With ail of this. mod- ern organdy is constructed to take .jt even though it con- tinues to look fragile. A permanent finish for or- gandy was developed about fifty years ago by the Heber- lein Company, a Swiss firm. It's this finish that takes the fabric, made by this process. through numerous launder- ings with no need for starch. There are new patterns in the flocked organdies from Switzerland for spring. docked organdy appears in drapes, in translucent table- cloths and napkins, in high fashion designs for late -day wear. The pattern stays in through cleaning or hand laundering. Casement organdies that -tire wrinkle -resistant make Gown, tablecloth, draperies and window shades, right, show the versatility of modern organdy with a permanent finish. interior decorating and fash- ion news. Some look like seersucker, others resemble baniboo. Colors are pastel or earthy, the latter including variations on the many bril- liant shades of springtime green. Tailored organdy bedspread, pillow sltani and draperies bring tht"- tone texture interest for modern bedrooms,