Ill 
NUTMEGS AND MACE 
99 
NAMES OF THE PLANT AND ITS PRODUCTS 
The nutmeg is known in France as Noix Muscade ; 
in Germany as Muskatnuss. In Malay, Pala ; Bali, Pa. 
In Tamil, Jadicai ; Hindu, Jaephal ; Sanskrit, Jatiphala ; 
Persian, Jouzbewa ; Arabic, Jouzalteib. 
Mace is Macis in French, Muskatbliite in German, 
Bunga Pala (flowers of nutmeg) in Malay. 
HISTORY 
Nutmeg and mace do not appear to have been 
known to the Greeks and Komans, though von Martins 
[Flora Braziliensis, fasc. II, 12, 133) maintains that 
it was alluded to in the Comedies of Plautus. The 
words macer, macar, or machir found in the works of 
Dioscorides, Galen, and Pliny evidently do not refer to 
mace, but to the bark of a tree, probably Ailantus 
malabaricus of Malabar. These spices, however, were 
imported from the East Indies by the Arabian traders 
in early days, and Aetius, resident at the court of 
Constantinople about a.d. 540, mentions Nuces Indicae 
among other aromatics, such as cloves, costus, and spike- 
nard, as an ingredient of the Suffumigium moschatum, 
Masudi, who visited India in a.d. 916-920, pointed 
out that the nutmeg, like cloves and sandal-wood, was 
obtained from the eastern islands of the Malay Archi- 
pelago, and about the thirteenth century the Arabian 
writer Kaswini identified the Moluccas as the source of 
the nutmeg. 
The first record of nutmegs in Europe is in a poem 
written about 1195 by Petrus D’Ebulo, describing how 
at the entry of the Emperor Henry VI. into Pome, 
before his coronation, the streets were fumigated with 
nutmegs and other aromatics. By the end of the 
twelfth century the spices were both well known in 
Europe, but very costly, for it is recorded that about 
1284, 1 lb. of mace cost 4s. 7d. the value then of three 
sheep, or half as much as a cow. 
