ITASCA, a co. of Minnesota, bounded by Rainy lake and Rainy Lake river, s.w. by the Mississippi; 5,200 sq.m.; pop. '70, exclusive of Indians, 96. It is drained partly by Big Fork river, and partly by some tributaries of Rainy Lake river. There are many lakes, marshes; and pine forests. There is here a reservation of Indians.
ITCH (known also as SCABIES and PSORA) is a contagions vesicular disease of the skin. All parts of the body, unless perhaps the head, are liable to be affected, but the most common seats of the disease are the wrists and hands, and especially between the fingers. The first sign of this affection is an itching sensation, which, upon minute examination, is found to proceed from a minute conical vesicle, while the adjacent portions of epidermis present a more scaly appearance than is natural. This condition of the skin is due to the presence of a minute acarus, the itch-mite (q.v.), which burrows within the epidermis, and excites the cutaneous irritation. The affected parts itch with increased intensity when the patient is warm in bed, or after the use of stimulating drinks or exciting condiments; and as be cannot refrain from scratching himself, the vesicles get more or less broken, and become interspersed with numerous little bloody points.
The itch being popularly regarded as a somewhat disreputable affection, and being highly contagious, it is very important that it should be distinguished from other cuta neous disorders. Eczema, prurigo, and lichen, are the affections most likely to be con founded with it; but eczema, though a vesicular disease, presents rounded and not conical resides, and at most only a pricking sensation, and nothing like the irritation of itch: while prurigo and lichen are papular disorders, and are not accompanied by the presence of vesicles; moreover, none of these diseases are contagious.
The itch is always communicated by contact, either immediately, as by the net of shaking hands, or through the medium of articles of clothing or bedding which have been used by a person suffering from the disorder, in sonic cases, the proximate cause of the disease, the itch-insect, is conveyed to the sound person in its perfect form; while in other cases, the ova or embryos suspended in the fluid of the vesicles may be the mode of transmission.
The disease, if not curet], will go on for an indefinite period, probably for life; hut in cold and temperate climates never gives rise to serious injury to the health. Num-. erous external remedies have at different times been employed for the cure of this dis ease, but the great remedy is sulphur, which may be regarded as a specific. In the case of an adult, Mr. Erasmus Wilson, our highest English authority on skin-diseases, recommends that "four ounces of sulphur ointment should be well rubbed into the entire skin before the fire, and particularly into the affected portions, morning and evening, for two days. It is desirable also that the patient should wear a flannel shirt, and retain the same during the whole of the treatment. On the morning of the third day, the patient should take a warm bath, and wash the skin thoroughly, with plenty of soap, when the cure will generally be found to be effected." When patients strongly object to the smell of sulphur, which is not unfrequently the case, an ointment made by digesting over a vapor-bath, for 24 hours, three parts of stavesacre in powder, with five parts of lard, and then straining, may be used. According to M. Bourguignou (who has made numerous experiments on the deleterious action of medicines on the living itch-mite), this ointment will cure the disease iu four days.