_Mastix_, _Resina Mastiche_; _Mastich_; F. _Mastic_; G. _Mastix_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Pistacia Lentiscus_ L., the lentisk, is a diœcious
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[651] 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,[652] 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.
Avicenna[653] 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,[654] 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.
[650] 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.
[651] Heldreich, _Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands_, Athen, 1862. 61.
[652] _Hist. Plant._ lib. ix. c. 1.
[653] Lib. ii. c. 462.
[654] Wright, _Early Travels in Palestine_, 1848. 77. (Bohn’s series).
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
(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.[655]
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_.[656] 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,[657]
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),[658] a large sum for that
period.
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.[659] A few years before that
event, it was visited by the French naturalist Belon[660] who testifies
from personal observation to the great care with which the lentisk was
cultivated by the inhabitants.
[655] 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.
[656] 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..
[657] 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 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.
[658] The ducat being reckoned at 9_s_. 2_d_.
[659] 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).
[660] _Observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses mémorables
trouvées en Grèce_, etc. Paris, 1554. liv. ii. ch. 8. p. 836.
When Tournefort[661] 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 Olivier[662] 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.[663]
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[664] 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 south-west of Sicily, not far from Tunis. In
a list enumerating the drugs to be met with in 1582 in the fair of
Frankfurt[665] 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.[666]
The disuse into which mastich has fallen makes it difficult to
understand its ancient importance; but a glance at the pharmacopœias of
the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries shows that it was an ingredient of a
large number of compound medicines.[667]
=Secretion=—In the bark of the stems and branches of the mastich shrub,
there are resin-ducts like those in the aromatic roots of _Umbelliferæ_
or _Compositæ_. In _Pistacia_ they may even be shown in the petioles.
The wood is devoid of resin,[668] so that slight incisions are
sufficient to provoke the resinous exudation, the bark being not very
thick, and liable to scale off.
[661] _Voyage into the Levant_, i. (1718) 285.
[662] _Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman et la Perse_, ii. (Paris, 1801)
132-136.
[663] 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.
[664] _Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia_, iii. (1872) 787.
[665] Flückiger, _Documente zur Geschichte der Pharmacie_, Halle, 1876.
31.
[666] _Ibid._ 41. 65.
[667] Thus in the _London Pharmacopœia_ of 1632, mastich enters into 24
of the 37 different kinds of pill, besides which it is prescribed in
troches and ointments.
[668] See Unger and Kotsehy, _Die Insel Cypern_, Wien, 1865. 424.
=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
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 κυλιστὸ and ϕλισκάρι, that collected
from the ground πῆττα, and the worst of all ϕλοῦδα.[669]
=Description=—The best sort of mastich consists of roundish tears
about the size of small peas, together with pieces of an oblong or
pear-shaped 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.
The soluble portion of mastich, called _Alpha-resin of Mastich_,
possesses acid properties, and like many other resins has the formula
C₂₀H₃₂O₃. Hartsen[670] 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.
[669] Heldreich (and Orphanides) _Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands_, Athen,
1862, 60.
[670] _Berichte der deutschen chem. Gesellsch._ 1876. 316.
=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 6_s_. 10_d_. per lb.—that of common 2_s_. 10_d_. The superior
quality is sent to Turkey, especially Constantinople, also to Trieste,
Vienna, and Marseilles, and a small quantity to England. The common
sort is employed in the East in the manufacture of _raki_ and other
cordials.[671]
=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 Kabul, and is the produce of _Pistacia Khinjuk_
Stocks, and the so-called _P. cabulica_ St. trees growing all over
Sind, Belúchistan and Kabul.[672] 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.[673]