millions of cwt., value £28,000,000; much of this was shipped to England.

Uses Raisins are an ingredient of Compound Tincture of Cardamoms and of Tincture of Senna. They have no medicinal properties, and are only used for the sake of the saccharine matter they impart.'

ANACARDIACEÆ.

MASTICHE.

Mastix, Resina Mastiche; Mastich; F. Mastic; G. Mastix.

Botanical Origin-Pistacia Lentiscus L., the lentisk, is a dioecious evergreen, mostly found as a shrub a few feet high; but when allowed to attain its full growth, it slowly acquires the dimensions of a small tree having a dense head of foliage. It is a native of the Mediterranean shores from Syria to Spain, and is found in Portugal, Morocco and the Canaries. In some parts of Italy it is largely cut for fuel.

Mastich is collected in the northern part of the island of Scio, which was long regarded as the only region in the world capable of affording it. Experiments made in 1856 by Orphanides 2 have proved that excellent mastich might be easily obtained in other islands of the Archipelago, and probably also in Continental Greece. The same botanist remarks that the trees yielding mastich in Scio are exclusively male.

History-Mastich has been known from a very remote period, and is mentioned by Theophrastus," who lived in the 4th century before the Christian era. Both Dioscorides and Pliny notice it as a production of the island of Chio, the modern Scio.

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Avicenna described (about the year 1000) two sorts of mastich, the white or Roman (i.e. Mediterranean or Christian), and the dark or Nabathæan,-the latter probably one of the Eastern forms of the drug mentioned at p. 165.

Benjamin of Tudela," who visited the island of Scio when travelling to the East about A.D. 1160-1173, also refers to it yielding mastich, which in fact has always been one of its most important productions, and from the earliest times intimately connected with its history.

Mastich was prescribed in the 13th century by the Welsh "Meddygon Myddvai" as an ingredient of ointments.

In the middle ages the mastich of Scio was held as a monopoly by the Greek emperors, one of whom, Michael Paleologus in 1261, permitted the Genoese to settle in the island. His successor Andronicus II. conceded in 1304 the administration of the island to Benedetto Zaccaria, a rich patrician of Genoa and the proprietor of the alum works of Fokia

1 The amount of this is very small. On macerating crushed raisins in proof spirit in the proportion of 2 oz. to a pint, we found each fluid ounce of the tincture so obtained to afford by evaporation to dryness 28 grains of a dark viscid sugary extract.

2 Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, Athen, 1862. 61.

3 Hist. Plant. lib. ix. c. 1.

4 Lib. ii. c. 462.

5 Wright, Early Travels in Palestine, 1848. 77. (Bohn's series).

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(the ancient Phocæa), north-west of Smyrna, for ten years, renouncing all tribute during that period. The concession was very lucrative, a large revenue being derived from the Contrata del Mastico or Mastich district and the Zaccaria family, taking advantage of the weakness of the emperor, determined to hold it as long as possible. In fact they made themselves the real sovereigns of Scio and of some of the adjacent islands, and retained their position until expelled by Andronicus III. in 1329.1

The island was retaken by the Genoese under Simone Vignosi in 1346; and then by a remarkable series of events became the property of an association called the Maona (the Arabic word for subsidy or reinforcement). Many of the noblest families of Genoa enrolled themselves in this corporation and settled in the island of Scio; and in order to express the community of interest that governed their proceedings, some of them relinquished their family names and assumed the general name of Giustiniani. This extraordinary society played a part exactly comparable to that of the late East India Company. In Genoa it had its "Officium Chii"; it had its own constitution and mint, and it engaged in wars with the emperors of Constantinople, the Venetians and the Turks, who in turn attacked and ravaged the mastich island and adjacent possessions.

The Giustinianis regulated very strictly the culture of the lentisk and the gathering and export of its produce, and cruelly punished all offenders. The annual export of the drug was 300 to 400 quintals,3 which were immediately assigned to the four regions with which the Maona chiefly traded. These were Romania (i.e. Greece, Constantinople and the Crimea), Occidente (Italy, France, Spain and Germany), Vera Turchia (Asia Minor), and Oriente (Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa). In 1364, a quintal was sold for 40 lire; in 1417, the price was fixed at 25 lire. In the 16th century, the whole income from the drug was 30,000 ducats (£13,750), a large sum for that period.

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In 1566, the Giustinianis definitively lost their beautiful island, the Turks under Piali Pasha taking it by force of arms under pretext that the customary tribute was not duly paid. A few years before that event, it was visited by the French naturalist Belon who testifies from

1 Friar Jordanus who visited Scio circa 1330 (?) noticed the production of mastich, and also the loss of the island by Martino Zaccaria.-Mirabilia descripta, or Wonders of the East, edited by Col. Yule for the Hakluyt Society, 1863.

2 Probably partly for the reason that a Palazzo Giustiniani in Genoa had become the property of the Society. In the little "Piazza Giustiniani," near the cathedral of San Lorenzo, that palace may still be seen, but there is only a large view of the island of Scio which would remind of the Maona. I was told in 1874 by Sig. Canale, the historian of Genoa, that he thought it doubtful that the Officium Chii had resided in the said palace.-F. A. F.

3 An incidental notice showing the value of the trade occurs in the letter of Columbus (himself a Genoese) announcing the result of his first voyage to the Indies. In stating

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what may be obtained from the island of Hispaniola, he mentions-gold and spices. . and mastich, hitherto found only in Greece in the island of Scio, and which the Signoria sells at its own price, as much as their Highnesses [Ferdinand and Isabella] shall command to be shipped. The letter bears date 15 Feb. 1493.-Letters of Christobal Columbus (Hakluyt Society) 1870. p. 15.

The ducat being reckoned at 9s. 2d.

5 For further particulars respecting the history of Scio, the Maona, and the trade of the Genoese in the Levant, see Hopf in Ersch and Grubber's Encyclopädie, vol. 68 (Leipzig, 1859) art. Giustiniani; also Heyd Colonie commerciali degli Italiani in Oriente i. (1866).

& Observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses mémorables trouveés en Grèce, etc. Paris, 1554. liv. ii. ch. 8. p. 836.

personal observation to the great care with which the lentisk was cultivated by the inhabitants.

When Tournefort' was at Scio in 1701, all the lentisk trees on the island were held to be the property of the Grand Signor, and if any land was sold, the sale did not include the lentisks that might be growing on it. At that time the mastich villages, about twenty in number, were required to pay 286 chests of mastich annually to the Turkish officers appointed to receive the revenue.

In the beginning of the present century, when Olivier2 paid a visit to the island of Chios, he found 50,000 ocche (one occa=2.82 lb. avdp. = 1.28 kilogrammes) or somewhat more to be the annual harvest of mastich.

The month of January, 1850, was memorable throughout Greece and the Archipelago for a frost of unparalleled severity which proved very destructive to the mastich trees of Scio, and occasioned a scarcity of the drug that lasted for many years.

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The foregoing statements show that for centuries past Scio or Chios was famed for this resin; there are however a few evidences proving that at least a little mastich used also to be collected in other islands. Amari quoted an Arabic geographer of the 12th century speaking of "il mastice di Pantellaria cavato da' lentischi e lo storace odorifero." Pantellaria, Kossura of the ancients, is the small volcanic island southwest of Sicily, not far from Tunis. In a list enumerating the drugs to be met with in 1582 in the fair of Frankfurt we find even mastich of Cyprus quoted as superior to the common. Cyprian mastich again occurs in the pharmaceutical tariffs of 1612 and 1669 of the same city, and in many others of that time."

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The disuse into which mastich has fallen makes it difficult to understand its ancient importance; but a glance at the pharmacopoeias of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries shows that it was an ingredient of a large number of compound medicines."

Secretion In the bark of the stems and branches of the mastich shrub, there are resin-ducts like those in the aromatic roots of Umbellifera or Compositæ. In Pistacia they may even be shown in the petioles. The wood is devoid of resin, so that slight incisions are sufficient to provoke the resinous exudation, the bark being not very thick, and liable to scale off.

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Collection-In Scio incisions are made about the middle of June in the bark of the stems and principal branches. From these incisions which are vertical and very close together, the resin speedily flows, and

1 Voyage into the Levant, i. (1718) 285. 2 Voyage dans l'Empire Othoman et la Perse, ii. (Paris, 1801) 132–136.

3 At Athens the mercury was for a short time at -10° C. (14° F.) In Scio, where the frost was probably quite as severe, though we have no exact data, the mischief to the lentisks varied with the locality, trees exposed to the north or growing at considerable elevations, being killed down to the base of the trunk, while those in more favoured positions suffered destruction only in some of their branches.

soon hardens and dries. After 15 to 20 days it is collected with much care in little baskets lined with white paper or clean cotton wool. The ground below the trees is kept hard and clean, and flat pieces of stone are often laid on it that the droppings of resin may be saved uninjured by dirt. There is also some spontaneous exudation from the small branches which is of very fine quality. The operations are carried on by women and children and last for a couple of months. A fine tree may yield as much as 8 to 10 pounds of mastich.

The dealers in Scio distinguish three or four qualities of the drug, of which the two finer are called KuλiσTò and pλiokapi, that collected from the ground πῆττα, and the worst of all φλοῦδα.

Description-The best sort of mastich consists of roundish tears about the size of small peas, together with pieces of an oblong or pearshaped form. They are of a pale yellow or slightly greenish tint darkening by age, dusty and slightly opaque on the surface but perfectly transparent within. The mastich of late imported has been washed; the tears are no longer dusty, but have a glassy transparent appearance. Mastich is brittle, has a conchoidal fracture, a slight terebinthinous balsamic odour. It speedily softens in the mouth, and may be easily masticated and kneaded between the teeth, in this respect differing from sandarac, a tear of which breaks to powder when bitten.

Inferior mastich is less transparent, and consists of masses of larger size and less regular shape, often contaminated with earthy and vegetable impurities.

The sp. gr. of selected tears of mastich is about 1:06. They soften at 99° C. but do not melt below 108°.

Mastich dissolves in half its weight of pure warm acetone and then deviates the ray of polarized light to the right. On cooling, the solution becomes turbid. It dissolves slowly in 5 parts of oil of cloves, forming even in the cold a clear solution; it is but little soluble in glacial acetic acid or in benzol.

Chemical Composition-Mastich is soluble to the extent of about 90 per cent in cold alcohol; the residue, which has been termed Masticin or Beta-resin of Mastich, is a translucent, colourless, tough substance, insoluble in boiling alcohol or in solution of caustic alkali, but dissolving in ether or oil of turpentine. According to Johnston, it is somewhat less rich in oxygen than the following.

2

The soluble portion of mastich, called Alpha resin of Mastich, possesses acid properties, and like many other resins has the formula CHO. Hartsen asserts that it can be obtained in crystals. Its alcoholic solution is precipitated by an alcoholic solution of neutral acetate of lead. Mastich contains a very little volatile oil.

Commerce-Mastich still forms the principal revenue of Scio, from which island the export in 1871 was 28,000 lb. of picked, and 42,000 lb. of common. The market price of picked mastich was equal to 68. 10d. per lb.-that of common 28. 10d. The superior quality is sent to Turkey, especially Constantinople, also to Trieste, Vienna, and Mar

1 Heldreich (and Orphanides) Nutzpflan zen Griechenlands, Athen, 1862, 60.

2 Berichte der deutschen chem. Gesellsch. 1876. 316.

seilles, and a small quantity to England. The common sort is employed in the East in the manufacture of raki and other cordials.1

Uses-Mastich is not now regarded as possessing any important therapeutic virtues, and as a medicine is becoming obsolete. Even in varnish making it is no longer employed as formerly, its place being well supplied by less costly resins, such for example as dammar.

Varieties There is found in the Indian bazaars a kind of mastich which though called Mustagi-rúmí (Roman mastich), is not imported from Europe but from Kábul, and is the produce of Pistacia Khinjuk Stocks, and the so-called P. cabulica St. trees growing all over Sind, Beluchistan and Kabul. This drug, of which the better qualities closely approximate to the mastich of Scio, sometimes appears in the European market under the name of East Indian or Bombay Mastich. We find that when dissolved in half its weight of acetone or benzol, it deviates the ray of light to the right.

The solid resin of the Algerian form of P. Terebinthus L., known as P. atlantica Desf., is collected and used as mastich by the Arab tribes of Northern Africa.3

TEREBINTHINA CHIA

Terebinthina Cypria; Chian or Cyprian Turpentine; F. Térébenthine ou Baume de Chio ou de Chypres; G. Chios Terpenthin, Cyprischer Terpenthin.

Botanical Origin-Pistacia Terebinthus L. (P. atlantica Desf., P. palæstina Boiss., P. cabulica Stocks), a tree 20 to 40 feet or more in height, in some countries only a shrub, common on the islands and shores of the Mediterranean as well as throughout Asia Minor, extending, as P. palæstina, to Syria and Palestine; and eastward, as P. cabulica, to Beluchistan and Afghanistan. It is found under the form called P. atlantica in Northern Africa, where it grows to a large size, and in the Canary Islands.

These several forms are mostly regarded as so many distinct species; but after due consideration and the examination of a large number of specimens both dried and living, we have arrived at the conclusion that they may fairly be united under a single specific name. The extreme varieties certainly present great differences of habit, as anyone would observe who had compared Pistacia Terebinthus as the straggling bush which it is in Languedoc and Provence, with the noble umbrageous tree it forms in the neighbourhood of Smyrna. But the different types are united by so many connecting links, that we have felt warranted in dissenting from the opinion usually held respecting them.

On the branches of Pistacia Terebinthus, a kind of galls is produced, which we shall briefly notice in our article Gallae halepenses.

1 Consul Cumberbatch, Report on Trade of Smyrna for 1871.-Raki, derived from the Turkish word sûqiz, for mastich, which, strange to say, would appear to have its home on the Baltic. In the vocabularies of the Old-Prussian idiom "sachis" is found meaning resin.-Blau, Zeitschrift der

Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellsch, xxix. 582.

2 Powell, Economic Products of the Punjab, Roorkee, 1868. 411.

3 Guibourt, Hist. d. Drog. iii. (1850) 458; Armieux, Topographie médicale du Sahara, Paris, 1866. 58.