Irritability
in anatomy, vital contractibility, the property of visibly contracting even after death, on the apstimulus. The right plication of a auricle has been found irritable for 16½ hours after death. A voluntary muscle has been found irritable 24 hours after death. In botany, excitability of an extreme character, in which an organ exhibits movements different from those commonly met with in plants. Its known causes are three-atmospheric pressure, spontaneous motion, and the contact of other bodies. Thus plants sleep, the compound leaves, where such exist, folding together; so also the sensitive plant shrinks from touch.
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Irritant
in pharmacy, that which produces irritation or excitement of any muscle, nerve, or other organ or part of the body. A pure irritant is a poison producing inflammation without corrosive action on the tissues.
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Irtish
a river of Siberia, the chief affluent of the Obi, rises at the E. end of the Altai Mountains, passes through Lake Saisan, breaks through the Altai in the W. at the bottom of a savage gorge, and flows N. W. across the steppes of Western Siberia to join the Obi, from the left, at Samarow. At that point it has a width of 2,000 yards; its total length is 1,620 miles; the area of its basin, 647,000 square miles. The important towns of Se Semipalatinsk, Omsk, and Tobolsk stand on its banks. From April to November it is navigable from its mouth as far as Lake Saisan; during the rest of the year traffic is carried on by means of sledges. Its current is gradually shifting E. Its best known tributaries are the Buchtarma and Om from the right, and the Tobol and Ishim from the left.
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Irus
a beggar of Ithaca and lover of Penelope, killed by Ulysses by a blow with his fist.
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Irvington
a city of New Jersey in Essex co. It adjoins Newark of which it is a suburb. It has important industries, including smelters, foundries, automobile works, oil refineries, etc. There is a hospital, Bethany Home, Elks Home, a park, and a town hall. Pop. (1910) 11,877; (1920) 25,466.
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Isabella
Queen of Spain. See Columbus ; Ferdinand; Moors ; Charles V; INQUISITION; CASTILE.
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Isaeus
One of the ten Attic orators, was born at Chalcis, and came to Athens at an early age. He wrote judicial orations for others, and established and established a rhetorical school at Athens, in which Demosthenes is said to have been his pupil. a
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Isar
or ISER (izer), a river of Bavaria, rises in the Tyrol, N. E. of Innsbruck, and flows 220 miles, generally in a N. and N. E. direction, till it falls into the Danube near Deggendorf. Munich and Landshut are on the banks "of Iser, rolling rapidly." Hohenlinden is 20 miles away. Area of its drainage basin, 3,545 square miles.
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Isatine
(I'zä-tēn), a product obtained by suspending finely powdered indigo in three times its weight of boiling water, and adding gradually nitric acid of sp. gr. 1.35 till the blue color has disappeared. On cooling, crude isatine is deposited, and may be purified by dissolving in potash, precipitating with hydrochloric acid, and crystallizing from alcohol. It crystallizes in the form of brilliant yellowish-red prisms, which dissolve readily in boiling water, in alcohol, and in ether. It may aso be produced synthetically by the action of oxidizing agents on amido-oxindol, or by the reduction of orthonitro-phenyl glyoxalic acid in alkaline solution. Isatine does not unite with acids, but rather plays the part of an acid. It dissolves in potassic hydrate, forming a dark violet-colored solution of potassium isatine, which, on addition of argentic nitrate, gives carmine-red crystals of argentine isatine, CH.NO.Ag. It also yields crystalline compounds, with alkaline hydric sulphites. Boiled with concentrated nitric acid, it is converted first into nitrosalicylic acid, and finally into trinitrophenol. When strongly heated, isatine fuses and sublimes in part unchanged.
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Isatis
a genus of plants, order Brassicaceæ. I. tinctoria, the woad, is an annual plant, native of Europe, occasionally cultivated here for the sake of its leaves, which yield a dye that may be substituted for indigo. It grows about four feet high, with large leaves clasping the stem with their broad bases; flowers yellow, large, in terminal racemes.
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Isauria
in ancient geography, a district of Asia Minor, occupying the summit and N. slopes of Mount Taurus. The people were stern and savage pirates and robbers. At length their depredations and those of their neighbors, the Cilicians, became so formidable that the Roman proconsul, P. Servilius, chased them into their mountain fastnesses and coerced them into submission in 76 B. c., for which exploit he acquired the surname Isauricus. Nevertheless the Isaurians were not subdued, though Pompey drove them off the sea. They conquered the Cilicians and remained the terror of the neighboring states down to the 4th century. In the reign of the Emperor Gallienus (253-268) there even arose among this savage folk a rival emperor, Trebellianus, who, however, was finally crushed. This same people also gave two emperors to Byzantium, Zeno I. (474- 491) and Leo III. (718-741); the descendants of the latter ruled over the empire of the East for three generations. From the 5th century onward the Isaurians gradually disappear from history.
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Ischia
the ancient Ænaria and Pithecusa, an island on the N. side of the entrance to the Bay of Naples, 6 miles from the mainland. Area, 26 square miles; pop. about 30,000. Ischia is a favorite place of summer resort, being noted for the excellence of its warm mineral waters. Its highest point is the volcanic Monte Epomeo, 2,608 feet, the last outbreak of which occurred in 1302. In 1881 Casamicciola was nearly destroyed by two earthquake shocks. On Sept. 28, 1883, the town was utterly overwhelmed, only four or five buildings being left standing, and 4,000 or 5,000 persons lost their lives. The inhabitants grows fruits, wine, and olive oil, and carry on fishing. Chief towns: Ischia, a bishop's seat; Casamicciola, and Forio.
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Ischium
one of the bones in the pelvic arch in vertebrated animals. It forms the posterior and inferior part of the os innominatum, and bounds the obturator foramen in the lower half of its extent.
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