POISON SUMACH. 187 
it before, and had frequently handled it with impunity, we fearlessly went to 
work, and after a few hours' excessive toil, made our way through. In about 
two days afterwards we were all more or less affected by it, and several were so 
badly swollen in their faces and limbs that they were unable to work. After 
repeatedly moistening the parts inflamed with a solution of borax (sub-borate of 
soda) and water, in five or six days, the eruptions mostly disappeared. Kalm, in 
his travels, states that this plant had no effect upon him, except once, on a hot 
day, when, being in some perspiration, he cut a branch, and carried it in his 
hand for half an hour, occasionally smelling it. During a week, his eyes 
were very red, and the eyelids very stiff, but the disorder went off by washing 
the parts in cold water. The persons most susceptible to the effects of this poison, 
are usually of irritable and unstable habits. In about forty-eight hours after being 
exposed to it, inflammation appears on the skin, in large blotches, principally on 
the face and extremities, and on the glandulous parts of the body ; soon after, 
small pustules appear in the inflamed parts, and become filled with watery mat- 
ter, attended with an almost insupportable itching and burning. In two or three 
days, the eruptions suppurate ; after which, the inflammation subsides, and in a 
short time the ulcers heal. 
It appears, from a notice in " Nicholson's Journal," vol. xxiii., that this poison is 
sometimes fatal to bees. A large swarm having settled on a branch, in the county 
of West Chester, New York, was taken into a hive at three o'clock in the after- 
noon, and removed to the place where it was to remain, at nine. About five the 
next morning, the bees were found dead, swollen to double their natural size, and 
turned black, except a few, which appeared torpid and feeble, and soon died, on 
exposure to the air. 
Between the wood and bark of this shrub, there exists a milky juice, having 
a nauseous smell, which stains linen of a dark-brown. Were it not for its poi- 
sonous qualities, this juice might be advantageously employed as a varnish, like 
that of the Rhus vernicifera, the plant from which the real Japan varnish is 
extracted. 
Loudon remarks that this species is not very common in British gardens ; but 
it well deserves culture, on account of the beauty of its smooth, shining foliage, 
at all seasons, and of its almost unparalleled splendour in the autumn, from the 
time that the leaves begin to change colour, till they ultimately drop off with the 
first frost. He recommends that the plant should always have a label attached 
to it, indicating the poisonous quality of the leaves, even when touched or 
smelled. 
