166 



ANACARDIACE^. 



History — The terebinth was well known to the ancients ; it is the 

 Tep/xij/009 of Theophrastus, repe/^tvdo^ of other authors, and the Alah of 

 the Old Testament/ Among its products, the kernels were regarded 

 by Dioscorides as unwholesome, though agreeable in taste. By pressing 

 them, the original Oil of Turpentine, repe^ivOipov eXaiov, a mixture of 

 essential and fat oil was obtained, as it is in the East to the present 

 day. The resinous juice of the stem and branches, the true, primitive 

 turpentine, /)/;TiV>? reo/JuvOivt], was celebrated as the finest of all analogous 

 products, and preferred both to mastich and the pinic resins. To the 

 latter however the name of turpentine was finally applied.^ 



Collection — The resinous juice is secreted in the bark, according to 

 Unger,^ and Marchand,* in special cells precisely as mastich in P. Lentis- 

 cus. That found in commerce is collected in the island of Scio. To some 

 extent it exudes spontaneously, yet in greater abundance after incisions 

 made in the stems and branches. This is done in spring, and the resin 

 continues to flow during the whole summer ; but the quantity is so 

 small that not more that 10 or 11 ounces are obtained from a large tree 

 in the course of a year. The turpentine, hardened by the coolness of 

 the night, is scraped from the stem down which it has flowed, or from 

 flat stones placed at the foot of the tree to receive it. As it is, when 

 thus collected, always mixed with foreign substances, it is purified to 

 some extent by straining through small baskets, after having been 

 liquefied by exposure to the sun. 



When Tournefort^ visited Scio in 1701, the island was said to produce 

 scarcely 800 okes or ocche (one occa = 2'82 lb. avdp.); a century later 

 Olivier^ stated, that the turpentine was becoming very scarce, 200 ocche 

 only, or even less, being the annual yield. It was then carefully col- 

 lected by means of little earthen vessels tied to the incised stems. The 

 trade is asserted to be now almost exclusively in the hands of 

 the Jews, who dispose of the drug in the interior part of the Turkish 

 Empire.^ 



Description — A specimen collected by Maltass near Smyrna in 

 1858 was, after ten years, of a light yellowish colour, scarcely fluid 

 though perfectly ti'ansparent, nearly of the odour of melted colophony 

 or mastich, and without much taste. We found it readily soluble in 

 spirit of wine, amylic alcohol, glacial acetic acid, benzol, or acetone, the 

 solution in each case being very slightly fluorescent. The alcoholic 

 solution reddens litmus, and is neither bitter nor acrid. Two parts of 

 this genuine turpentine dissolved in one of acetone deviate a ray of 

 polarized light 7° to the right * in a column 50 mm. long. 



Chian turpentine as found in commerce and believed to be genuine, 

 is a soft solid, becoming brittle by exposure to the air ; viewed in mass 

 it appears opaque and of a dull brown hue. If pressed while warm 



^ Genesis xii. 6, where the word is ren- 

 dered in our version plain. 



2 Further historical information on the 

 Terebinth may be found in Hehn's Kultur- 

 pjlanzen und Haustldere, Berlin, 1877. 

 336. 



^linger u. Kotschy, die Insel Cypern, 

 1865. 361. 424. 



■* Revision du groupe des Anricardiac^es. 



Paris, 1869.150. Plate iii. shows the resini- 

 ferous ducts of a branch two years old. 



5 Voyage into the Levant, i. (1718) 287. 



" Voy. dans V Empire Oihoman, etc., ii. 

 (1801) '136. 



'' Maltass, Pharm. Journ. xvii. (1856) 

 540. 



* A solution of mastich made in the same 

 proportion deviates 3" to the right. 



