308 A COMPENDIUM OF 
easily fractured and becomes soft by chewing. 
Odor, balsamic and agreeable; taste, bitter and 
feebly terebinthinous; contains about go per 
cent. of reszn, termed alpha resin or mastichic 
acid, and a trace of volatile oil, soluble in oil of 
turpentine, alcohol and ether. The Pistacia 
Cabulica, Bombay Mastic, differs little from the 
aforementioned, except that it is more opaque 
and less free from foreign material; both vari- 
eties are liable to be adulterated with the San- 
darac. Mastic is an old remedy and used by 
the ancient Greeks asa medicine. In modern 
times used as a varnish and cement, it however 
still retains a place in the officinal preparations 
in form of the Pilula Aloes et Mastiches. As 
a mild stimulant, it has been used in chronic 
disorders of the mucous membrane. 
Saccharum Officinarum, Sugar Cane.— 
Natural order Graminacee. Native of south- 
ern Asia and cultivated in other tropical and 
subtropical countries. The stem of the sugar 
cane arises to a height of 6 to 12 feet, much 
jointed and adorned with long linear leaves, en- 
veloped in sheaths at the point of their inser- 
tion, : Flowers in panicles 1 to 2 feet long, wavy 
and silvery in appearance; this is due to the 
long hairs attached to the florets. The sugar 
cane is cultivated by cuttings, and takes about 
12 months to come to maturity; it is then cut 
and the juice (which is between 70 and 80 per 
cent. of the cane) expressed. From this 80 per 
cent. of juice we obtain 18 per cent. of sugar. 
The expressed liquid is saturated with lime for 
the purpose of removing the acid present; it is 
then heated. This prepared fluid is then al- 
