Prismatic sodium thiosulfate
The good old days. :-)
I was photographer in an advertising art and production studio where
we did it all. I shot the photos, we had some incredibly good
airbrush artists, a couple of illustrators who could do with paint
and brush what didn't exist to be photographed, and a guy who laid it
out on a board ready for the camera.
All of that is now contained in software.
I don't know what to say about it. I still call up a friend when I
need an advertisement prepared for print, but I can do in to a
photograph in Photoshop everything and more than I used to do with
all my arcane tricks in the lab. I even had a copy (in German) of
Eder's Handbuch der Fotographie. It was my secret book of Alchemie.
I still get nostalgic when I smell hypo.
Sic transit, etc.
By the way, it is not well known anymore, but plain hypo ...
prismatic sodium thiosulfate, not the mixture sold as "Acid Fixer"
.... you have to argue with clerks nowadays to sell you the plain
stuff ... but it is a cure for poison oak that beats everything
else. Just make a saturated solution of it in water, and put it on.
Odorless, colorless, and it will get rid of your poison oak rashes
and blisters in a couple of days.
I gave some to an airline stewardess once, flying between Atlanta and
Greenville, SC. She had gauze bandages wrapped around both legs, and
I asked her why. Poison oak, she told me. So, being prepared for
every eventuality, I opened my carry-on bag, gave her a one pound box
of Kodak Hypo Crystals, and told her how to use it. A week later, on
the way back, I had the same stewardess, sans poison oak. It was
totally gone. She said it stopped the itching in a few hours and the
blisters just dried up and vanished.
Try it next spring.