TEREBINTHINA CHIA. 1G5 



seilles, and a small quantity to England. The common sort is employed 

 in the East in the manufacture of raJci and other cordials.* 



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 Musiagi-i'umi (Roman mastich), is not imported 

 from Europe but from Kabul, 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 foim of P. Terebinthus L., known as 

 P. atlantica Desf , is collected and used as mastich by the Arab tribes 

 of Northern Africa.^ 



TEREBINTHINA CHIA 



Terebinihhia Cypria ; Chian or Cyprian Turpentine ; F. Te'rebenthine 

 ou Baume de Ohio ou de Chypres ; G, Chios Tei^ienthin, Cyprischer 

 Tei'penthin. 



Botanical Origin — Pistacia Terebinthus L. (P. atlantica Desf, 

 P. palcestina 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, extend- 

 ing, as P. paloistina, to Syria and Palestine ; and eastward, as P. 

 cahv.lica, 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 neighboiu-hood 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. 



^ CJonsul Cumberbatch, Report on Trade Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellsch, xxix. 582. 



of Smyrna for 1871. — Baki, derived from ^Vowe]l,Economic Productso/the Punjab, 



the Turkish word sogfe, for mastich, which, Eoorkee, 1868. 411. 



strange to say, would appear to have its ^ Guibourt, Hut. d. Drag. iii. (1850) 458; 



home on the Baltic. In the vocabularies Armienx, Topographiemedicaledu Sahara, 



of the Old-Prussian idiom " sachis" is Paris, 1866. 58. 

 found meaning resin. — Blau, Zeitschri/t der 



