FRUCTUS PIPERIS NIGRI.

Piper nigrum; Black Pepper; F. Poivre noir; G. Schwarzer Pfeffer.

Botanical Origin—Piper nigrum L.—The pepper plant is a perennial climbing shrub, with jointed stems branching dichotomously, and broadly ovate, 5-to 7-nerved, stalked leaves. The slender flower-spikes are opposite the leaves, stalked, and from 3 to 6 inches long; and the fruits are sessile and fleshy.

Piper nigrum is indigenous to the forests of Travancore and Malabar, whence it has been introduced into Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, Siam, the Philippines and the West Indies.

History—Pepper[2144] is one of the spices earliest used by mankind, and although now a commodity of but small importance in comparison with sugar, coffee, and cotton, it was for many ages the staple article of trade between Europe and India. It would require in fact a volume to give a full idea of the prominent importance of pepper during the middle ages.

In the 4th century b.c., Theophrastus noticed the existence of two kinds of pepper (πέπερι), probably the Black Pepper and Long Pepper of modern times. Dioscorides stated pepper to be a production of India, and was acquainted with White Pepper (λευκὸν πέπερι). Pliny’s information on the same subject is curious; he tells us that in his time a pound of long pepper was worth 15, of white 7, and of black pepper 4 denarii; and expresses his astonishment that mankind should so highly esteem pepper, which was neither a sweet taste nor attractive appearance, or any desirable quality besides a certain pungency.

In the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written about a.d. 64, it is stated that pepper is exported from Baraké, the shipping place of Nelkunda, in which region, and there only, it grows in great quantity. These have been identified with places on the Malabar Coast between Mangalore and Calicut.[2145]

Long pepper and Black pepper are among the Indian spices on which the Romans levied duty at Alexandria about a.d. 176.[2146]

Cosmas Indicopleustes,[2147] a merchant, and in later life a monk, who wrote about a.d. 540, appears to have visited the Malabar Coast, or at all events had some information about the pepper plant from an eye-witness. It is he who furnishes the first particulars about it, stating that it is a climbing plant, sticking close to high trees like a vine. Its native country he calls Male. [2148] The Arabian authors of the middle ages, as Ibn Khurdádbah (circa a.d. 869-885), Edrisi in the middle of the 12th, and Ibn Batuta in the 14th century, furnished nearly similar accounts.

Among Europeans who described the pepper plant with some exactness, one of the first was Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the Malabar Coast in a.d. 1166. Another was the Catalan friar, Jordanus,[2149] about 1330; he described the plant as something like ivy, climbing trees and forming fruit, like that of the wild vine. “This fruit,” he says, “is at first green, then, when it comes to maturity, black.” Nearly the same statements are repeated by Nicolo Conti, a Venetian, who at the beginning of the 15th century, spent twenty-five years in the East. He observed the plant in Sumatra, and also described it as resembling ivy.[2150]

In Europe, pepper during the middle ages was the most esteemed and important of all spices, and the very symbol of the spice trade, to which Venice,[2151] Genoa, and the commercial cities of Central Europe were indebted for a large part of their wealth; and its importance as a means of promoting commercial activity during the middle ages, and the civilizing intercourse of nation with nation, can scarcely be overrated.

Tribute was levied in pepper,[2152] and donations were made of this spice, which was often used as a medium of exchange when money was scarce. During the siege of Rome by Alaric, king of the Goths, a.d. 408, the ransom demanded from the city included among other things 5000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, and 3000 pounds of pepper.[2153] After the conquest of Cæsarea in Palestine, a.d. 1101, by the Genoese, each of them received two pounds of pepper and 48 soldi for his part of the booty.[2154] Facts of this nature, of which a great number might be enumerated, sufficiently illustrate the part played by this spice in mediæval times.

The general prevalence during the middle ages of pepper-rents, which consisted in an obligation imposed upon a tenant to supply his lord with a certain quantity of pepper, generally a pound, at stated times, shows how acceptable was this favourite condiment, and how great the desire of the wealthier classes to secure a supply of it when the market was not always certain.[2155]

The earliest reference to a trade in pepper in England that we have met with, is in the Statutes of Ethelred, a.d. 978-1016,[2156] where it is enacted that the Easterlings coming with their ships to Billingsgate should pay at Christmas and Easter for the privilege of trading with London, a small tribute of cloth, five pairs of gloves, ten pounds of pepper,[2157] and two barrels of vinegar.

The merchants who trafficked in spices were called Piperarii,—in English Pepperers, in French Poivriers or Pebriers. As a fraternity or guild, they are mentioned as existing in London in the Reign of Henry II. (a.d. 1154-1189). They were subsequently incorporated as the Grocers’ Company, and had the oversight and control of the trade in spices, drugs, dye-stuffs, and even metals.[2158]

The price of pepper during the middle ages was always exorbitantly high, for the rulers of Egypt extorted a large revenue from all those who were engaged in the trade in it and other spices.[2159] Thus in England between a.d. 1263 and 1399, it averaged 1s. per lb., equivalent to about 8s. of our present money. It was however about 2s. per lb. (= 16s.) between 1350 and 1360.[2160] In 1370 we find pepper in France valued 7 sous 6 deniers per lb. (= fr. 21. c. 30):—in 1542 at a price equal to fr. 11 per lb.[2161]

The high cost of this important condiment contributed to incite the Portuguese to seek for a sea-passage to India. It was some time after the discovery of this passage (a.d. 1498) that the price of pepper first experienced a considerable fall; while about the same period the cultivation of the plant was extended to the western islands of the Malay Archipelago. The trade in pepper continued to be a monopoly of the Crown of Portugal as late as the 18th century.

The Venetians used every effort to retain the valued traffic in their own hands, but in vain; and it was a fact of general interest when on the 21st of January 1522 a Portuguese ship brought for the first time the spices of India direct to the city of Antwerp. Strange to say, they were received with great mistrust!

Pepper was heavily taxed in England. In 1623 the imposts levied on it amounted to 5s. per lb.; and even down to 1823 it was subject to a duty of 2s. 6d. per lb.

Production—In the south-west of India, the plant, or Pepper Vine as it is called, grows on the sides of the narrow valleys where the soil is rich and moist, producing lofty trees by which a constant, favourable coolness is maintained. In such places the pepper-vine runs along the ground and propagates itself by striking out roots into the soil. The natives tie up the end of the vines lying on the ground to the nearest tree, on the bark of which the stems put out roots so far as they have been tied, the shoots above that hanging down. The plant is capable of growing to a height of 20 or 30 feet, but for the sake of convenience it is usually kept low, and is often trained on poles. In places where no vines occur naturally, the plant is propagated by planting slips near the roots of the trees on which it is to climb.

The pepper plants if grown on a rich soil begin to bear even in the first year, and continue to increase in productiveness till about the fifth, when they yield 8 to 10 lb. of berries per plant, which is about the average produce up to the age of 15 to 20 years; after this they begin to decline.

When one or two berries at the base of the spike begin to turn red, the whole spike is pinched off. Next day the berries are rubbed off with the hands and picked clean; then dried for three days on mats, or on smooth hard ground, or on bamboo baskets near a gentle fire.

In Malabar the pepper-vine flowers in May and June, and the fruits become fit for gathering at the commencement of the following year.[2162]

The largest quantities of pepper are produced in the island of Rhio, near Singapore, in Djohor (in the south-eastern coast of the Malayan Peninsula), and in Penang. The latter island affords on an average about one-half of the total crop.

Description—The small, round, berry-like fruits grow somewhat loosely to the number of 20 to 30, on a common pendulous fruit-stalk. They are at first green, then become red, and if allowed to ripen, yellow; but they are gathered before complete maturity, and by drying in that state turn blackish grey or brown. If left until quite ripe they lose some of their pungency, and gradually fall off.

The berries after drying are spherical, about ⅕ inch in diameter, wrinkled on the surface, indistinctly pointed below by the remains of the very short pedicel, and crowned still more indistinctly by the 3-or 4-lobed stigma. The thin pericarp tightly encloses a single seed, the embryo of which in consequence of premature gathering is undeveloped, and merely replaced by a cavity situated below the apex. The seed itself contains within the thin red-brown testa a shining albumen, grey and horny without, and mealy within. The pungent taste and peculiar smell of pepper are familiar to all.

Microscopic Structure—The transverse section of a grain of black pepper exhibits a soft yellowish epidermis, covering the outer pericarp. This is formed of a closely-packed yellow layer of large, mostly radially arranged, thick-walled cells, each containing in its small cavity a mass of dark brown resin. The middle layer of the pericarp consists of soft, tangentially-extended parenchyme, containing an abundance of extremely small starch granules and drops of oil. The shrinking of this loose middle layer is the chief cause of the deep wrinkles on the surface of the berry. The next inner layer of the pericarp exhibits towards its circumference tangentially-arranged, soft parenchyme, the cells of which possess either spiral striation or spiral fibres, but towards the interior loose parenchyme, free from starch, and containing very large oil-cells.

The testa is formed in the first place of a row of small yellow thick-walled cells. Next to them follows the true testa, as a dense, dark brown layer of lignified cells, the individual outlines of which are undistinguishable.

The albumen of the seeds consists of angular, radially-arranged, large-celled parenchyme. Most of its cells are colourless and loaded with starch; others contain a soft yellow amorphous mass. If thin slices are kept under glycerin for some time, these masses are slowly transformed into needle-shaped crystals of piperin.

Chemical Composition—Pepper contains resin and essential oil, to the former of which its sharp pungent taste is due. The essential oil has more of the smell than of the taste of pepper.[2163] The drug yields from 1·6 to 2·2 per cent. of this volatile oil, which agrees with oil of turpentine in composition as well as in specific gravity and boiling point. We find it, in a column 50 mm. long, to deviate the ray of polarized light 1°·2 to 3°·4 to the left.

The most interesting constituent of pepper, Piperin, which pepper yields to the extent of 2 to 8 per cent., agrees in composition with the formula C₁₇H₁₉NO₃, like morphine. Piperin has no action on litmus paper; it is not capable of combining directly with an acid, yet unites with hydrochloric acid in the presence of mercuric and other metallic chlorides, forming crystallizable compounds. It is insoluble in water; when perfectly pure, its crystals are devoid of colour, taste and smell. Its alcoholic solution is without action on polarized light. Piperin may be resolved, as found by Anderson in 1850, into Piperic Acid, C₁₂H₁₀O₄, and Piperidine, C₅H₁₁N. The latter is a liquid colourless alkaloid, boiling at 106° C., having the odour of pepper and ammonia, and directly yielding crystallizable salts.

Besides these constituents, pepper also contains some fatty oil in the mesocarp. Of inorganic matter, it yields upon incineration from 4·1 to 5·7 per cent.

Commerce—Singapore is the great emporium for pepper, of which 197,478 peculs (26⅓ million lb.) were imported there in 1877. The largest part of it finds its way to England. The import of pepper into the United Kingdom during 1872, was 27,576,710 lb. valued at £753,970. Of this quantity, the Straits Settlements supplied 25,000,000 lb., and British India 256,000 lb. Of the quantity of 25,917,070 lb., imported in 1876 into Great Britain, the home consumption was 9 million lb.

The exports of pepper from the United Kingdom in 1872 amounted to 17,891,620 lb., the largest quantity being taken by Germany (5,201,574 lb.) Then follows Italy (2,288,647 lb.); and Russia, Holland and Spain, each of which took more than a million pounds.[2164]

The varieties of pepper quoted in price-currents are Malabar, Aleppee and Cochin, Penang, Singapore, Siam.

A large quantity is also shipped from Singapore to China, the imports of that country in 1877 of both black and white pepper, being 53,844 peculs (7,179,200 lb.)

Uses—Pepper is not of much importance as a medicine, and is rarely if ever prescribed, except indirectly as an ingredient of some preparation.

Adulteration—Whole pepper is not, we believe, liable in Europe to adulteration;[2165] but the case is widely different as regards the pulverized spice. Notwithstanding the enormous penalty of £100, to which the manufacturer, possessor, or seller of adulterated pepper is liable,[2166] and the low cost of the article, ground pepper has hitherto been frequently sophisticated by the addition of the starches of cereals and potatoes, of sago, mustard husks, linseed and capsicum. The admixture of these substances may for the most part be readily detected, after some practice, by the microscope.[2167]

White Pepper.

This form of the spice is prepared from black pepper by removing its dark outer layer of pericarp, and thereby depriving it of a portion of its pungency. It is mentioned by Dioscorides, yet was evidently very little known in Europe even during the middle ages. In the time of Platearius,[2168] white pepper was supposed to be derived from a plant different from Piper nigrum.

Buchanan,[2169] referring to Travancore, remarks that white pepper is made by allowing the berries to ripen; the bunches are then gathered, and having been kept for three days in the house, are washed and bruised in a basket with the hand till all the stalks and pulp are removed.

The finest white pepper is obtained from Tellicherry, on the Malabar Coast, but only in small quantity. The more important places for its preparation are the Straits Settlements, chiefly Rhio. The export of white pepper from Singapore in 1877 was 48,460 peculs. Most of the spice finds its way to China, where it is highly esteemed. In Europe, pepper in its natural state is with good reason preferred.

The grains of white pepper are of rather larger size than those of black, and of a warm greyish tint. They are nearly spherical or a little flattened. At the base the skin of the fruit is thickened into a blunt prominence, whence about 12 light stripes run meridian-like towards the depressed summit. If the skin is scraped off, the dark brown testa is seen enclosing the hard translucent albumen. In anatomical structure, as well as in taste and smell, white pepper agrees with black, which in fact it represents in a rather more fully-grown state.

White pepper appears to afford on an average not more than 1·9 per cent. of essential oil, but to be richer in piperin, of which Cazeneuve and Caillol (1877) extracted as much as 9 per cent. The amount of ash yielded by white pepper is 1·1 per cent. on an average, that is to say, considerably less than by black pepper.

FRUCTUS PIPERIS LONGI.

Piper longum; Long Pepper; F. Poivre long; G. Langer Pfeffer.

Botanical Origin—Piper officinarum C. DC. (Chavica[2170] officinarum Miq.), a diœcious shrubby plant, with ovate-oblong acuminate leaves, attenuated at the base, and having pinnate nerves. It is a native of the Indian Archipelago, as Java, Sumatra, Celebes and Timor. Long pepper is the fruit spike, collected and dried shortly before it reaches maturity.

Piper longum L.[2171] (Chavica Roxburghii Miq.), a shrub indigenous to Malabar, Ceylon, Eastern Bengal, Timor and the Philippines, also yields long pepper, for the sake of which it is cultivated along the eastern and western coasts of India. It may be distinguished from the previous species by its 5-nerved leaves, cordate at the base.[2172]

History—A drug termed Πέπερι μακρὸν, Piper longum, was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and may have been the same as the Long Pepper of modern times.

In the Latin verses bearing the name of Macer Floridus,[2173] which were probably written in the 10th century, mention is made of Black, White, and Long Pepper. The last named spice, or Macropiper, is named by Simon of Genoa,[2174] who was physician to Pope Nicolas IV. and chaplain to Boniface VIII. (a.d. 1288-1303), and travelled in the East for the study of plants. Piper longum is also met with in the list of drugs on which (a.d. 1305) duty was levied at Pisa.[2175] Nicolo Conti of Venice, who lived in India from 1419 to 1444, noticed Long Pepper.[2176] Saladinus[2177] in the middle of the 15th century enumerates long pepper among the drugs necessary to be kept by apothecaries and it has had a place in the pharmacopœias to the present time.

Production—In Bengal the plants are cultivated by suckers, and require to be grown on a rich, high and dry soil; they should be set about five feet asunder. An English acre will yield in the first year about three maunds (1 maund = 80 lbs.) of the pepper, in the second twelve, and in the third eighteen; after which, as the plant becomes less and less productive, the roots are grubbed up, dried, and sold as Pipli-múl, of which there is a large consumption in India as a medicine. The pepper is gathered in the month of January, when full grown, and exposed to the sun until perfectly dry. After the fruit has been collected, the stem and branches die down to the ground.[2178]

Description—Long pepper consists of a multitude of minute baccate fruits, closely packed around a common axis, the whole forming a spike of 1½ inch long and ¼ of an inch thick. The spike is supported on a stalk ½ an inch long; it is rounded above and below, and tapers slightly towards its upper end. The fruits are ovoid, ⅒ of an inch long, crowned with a nipple-like point (the remains of the stigma), and arranged spirally with a small peltate bract beneath each. A transverse section of a spike exhibits 8 to 10 separate fruits, disposed radially with their narrower end pointed towards the axis. Beneath the pericarp, the thin brown testa encloses a colourless albumen, of which the obtuser end is occupied by the small embryo.

The long pepper of the shops is greyish-white, and appears as if it had been rolled in some earthy powder. When washed, the spikes acquire their proper colour,—a deep reddish-brown. The drug has a burning aromatic taste, and an agreeable but not powerful odour.

The foregoing description applies to the long pepper of English commerce, which is now obtained chiefly from Java (see next page), where P. officinarum is the common species. In fact the fruits of this latter, as presented to us by Mr. Binnendyk, of the Botanical Garden, Buitenzorg, near Batavia, offer no characters by which we can distinguish them from the article found in the London shops. Those of P. Betle L. var. γ. densum are extremely similar, but we do not know that they are collected for use.

Microscopic Structure—The structure of the individual fruits resembles that of black pepper, exhibiting however some characteristic differences. The epicarp has on the outside, tangentially-extended, thick-walled, narrow cells, containing gum; the middle layer consists of wider, thin-walled, obviously porous parenchyme containing starch and drops of oil. In the outer and middle layers of the fruit numerous large thick-walled cells are scattered, as in the external pericarp of Piper nigrum; in long pepper, however, they do not form a close circle. The inner pericarp is formed of a row of large, cubic or elongated, radially-arranged cells, filled with volatile oil. A row of smaller tangentially-extended cells separates these oil-cells from the compact brown-red testa, which consists of lignified cells like the inner layer of the testa of black pepper, but without the thick-walled cells peculiar to the latter. The albumen of long pepper is distinguished from that of black pepper by the absence of volatile oil.

Chemical Constituents—The constituents of long pepper appear to be the same as those of black pepper. We ascertained the presence of piperin; 8 pounds of the drug were not sufficient to afford us an appreciable quantity of the volatile oil. The resin and volatile oil reside exclusively in the pericarp. Long pepper, according to Blyth (1874), yields 8⅓ per cent. of ash.

Commerce—Long pepper is at present exported from Penang and Singapore, whither it is brought chiefly from Java, and to a much smaller extent from Rhio. The quantity exported from Singapore in 1871 amounted to 3,366 cwt., of which only 447 cwt. were shipped to the United Kingdom, the remainder being sent chiefly to British India.[2179] The export from Penang is from 2,000 to 3,000 peculs annually. There is also a considerable export of long pepper from Calcutta.

Uses—Long pepper is scarcely used as a medicine, black pepper having been substituted in the few preparations in which it was formerly ordered, but it is employed as a spice and in veterinary medicine.

The aromatic root of Piper longum, called in Sanskrit Pippali-mula[2180] (whence the modern name pipli-múl), is a favourite remedy of the Hindus and also known to the Persians and Arabs.

CUBEBÆ.

Fructus vel Baccæ vel Piper Cubebæ[2181]; Cubebs; F. Cubèbes; G. Cubeben.

Botanical Origin—Piper Cubeba Linn. f. (Cubeba officinalis Miq.), a climbing, woody, diœcious shrub, indigenous to Java, Southern Borneo and Sumatra.[2182]

History—Cubebs have been introduced into medicine by the Arabian physicians of the middle ages, who describe them as having the form, colour, and properties of pepper. Masudi[2183] in the 10th century stated them to be a production of Java. Edrisi,[2184] the geographer, in a.d. 1153 enumerated them among the imports of Aden.

Among European writers, Constantinus Africanus of Salerno was acquainted with this drug as early as the 11th century; and in the beginning of the 13th its virtues were noticed in the writings of the Abbess Hildegard in Germany, and even in those of Henrik Harpestreng in Denmark.[2185]

Cubebs are mentioned as a production of Java (“grant isle de Javva”) by Marco Polo; and by Odoric, an Italian friar, who visited the island about forty years later. In the 13th century the drug was an article of European trade, and would appear to have already been regularly imported into London.[2186] Duty was levied upon them as Cubebas silvestres at Barcelona in 1271.[2187] They are mentioned about this period as sold in the fairs of Champagne in France, the price being 4 sous per lb.[2188] They were also sold in England: in accounts under date 1284 they are enumerated with almonds, saffron, raisins, white pepper, grains [of paradise], mace, galangal, and gingerbread, and entered as costing 2s. per lb. In 1285—2s. 6d. to 3s. per lb.; while in 1307, 1 lb. purchased for the King’s Wardrobe cost 9s.[2189]

From the journal of expenses of John, king of France, while in England during 1359-60, it is evident that cubebs were in frequent use as a spice. Among those who could command such luxuries, they were eaten in powder with meat, or they were candied whole. A patent of pontage granted in 1305 by Edward I., to aid in repairing and sustaining the Bridge of London, and authorizing toll on various articles, mentions among groceries and spices, cubebs as liable to impost.[2190] Cubebs occur in the German lists of medicines of Frankfort and Nördlingen, about 1450 and 1480;[2191] they are also mentioned in the Confectbuch of Hans Folcz of Nuremberg, dating about 1480.[2192]

It cannot however be said that cubebs were a common spice, at all comparable with pepper or ginger, or even in such frequent use as grains of paradise or galangal. Garcia de Orta (1563) speaks of them as but seldom used in Europe; yet they are named by Saladinus as necessary to be kept in every apotheca.[2193] In a list of drugs to be sold in the apothecaries’ shops of the city of Ulm, a.d. 1596, cubebs are mentioned as Fructus carpesiorum vel cubebarum, the price for half an ounce being quoted as 8 kreuzers, the same as that of opium, best manna, and amber, while black and white pepper are priced at 2 kreuzers.[2194]

Although it was always well known that the cubebs were a product of Java and that island is stated to have exported in 1775 as much as 10,000 lb. of this spice,[2195] its mother plant was made known only in 1781 by the younger Linnæus.

The action of cubebs on the urino-genital organs was known to the old Arabian physicians. Yet modern writers on materia medica even at the commencement of the present century, mentioned the drug simply as an aromatic stimulant resembling pepper, but inferior to that spice and rarely employed,[2196]—in fact it had so far fallen into disuse that it was omitted from the London Pharmacopœia of 1809. According to Crawfurd, its importation into Europe, which had long been discontinued, recommenced in 1815, in consequence of its medicinal virtues having been brought to the knowledge of the English medical officers serving in Java, by their Hindu servants.[2197]

Cultivation and Production[2198]—Cubebs are cultivated in small special plantations and also in coffee plantations, in the district of Banjoemas in the south of Java. The fruits are bought by Chinese who carry them to Batavia. They are likewise produced in Eastern Java and about Bantam and Soebang in the north-west; and extensively in the Lampong country in Sumatra. There has of late been a large distribution of plants among the European coffee planters.

The cultivation of cubebs is easy. In the coffee estates certain trees are required for shade: against these Piper Cubeba is planted, and climbing to a height of 18 to 20 feet, forms a large bush.

Description—The cubebs of commerce consist of the dry globose fruits, gathered when full-grown, but before they have arrived at maturity. The fruit is about ⅕ of an inch in diameter, when very young sessile, but subsequently elevated on a straight thin stalk, a little longer or even twice as long as itself. By this stalk the fruit is attached in considerable numbers (sometimes more than 50) to a common thickened stalk or rachis, about 1½ inch long.

Commercial cubebs are spherical, sometimes depressed at the base, very slightly pointed at the apex, strongly wrinkled by the shrinking of the fleshy pericarp; they are of a greyish-brown or blackish hue, frequently covered with an ashy-grey bloom. The stalk is the elongated base of the fruit, and remains permanently attached. The common axis or rachis, which is almost devoid of essential oil, is also frequently mixed with the drug.

The skin of the fruit covers a hard, smooth brown shell containing the seed, which latter when developed has a compressed spherical form, a smooth surface, and adheres to the pericarp only at the base; its apex either projects slightly or is pressed inwards. The albumen is solid, whitish, oily, and encloses a small embryo below the apex. In the cubebs of the shops, the seed is mostly undeveloped and shrunken, and the pericarp nearly empty.

Cubebs have a strong, aromatic, persistent taste, with some bitterness and acridity. Their smell is highly aromatic and by no means disagreeable.

Microscopic Structure—This exhibits some peculiarities. The skin of the fruit below the epidermis, is made up of small, cubic, thick-walled cells, forming an interrupted row, and only half as large as in black pepper. The broad middle layer consists of small cubic thick-walled cells, forming an interrupted row, and only half as large as in black pepper. The broad middle layer consists of small-celled undeveloped tissue containing drops of oil, granules of starch, and crystalline groups of cubebin, probably also fat. This middle layer is interrupted by very large oil-cells, which frequently enclose needle-shaped crystals of cubebin, united in concentric groups. The much narrower inner layer consists of about four rows of somewhat larger tangentially-extended soft cells, holding essential oil. Next to these comes the light yellow brittle shell, formed of a densely packed row of encrusted, radially-arranged, elongated thick-walled cells. Lastly, the embryo is covered with a thin brown membrane, and exhibits the structure and contents as that of Piper nigrum, excepting that in P. Cubeba the cells are rounder, and the crystals consist of cubebin and not of piperin.

Chemical Composition—The most obvious constituent of cubebs is the volatile oil, the proportion of which yielded by the drug varies from 4 to 13 per cent. The causes of this great variation may be found in the constitution of the drug itself, as well as in the alterability of the oil, and the fact that its prevailing constituents begin not to boil below 264° C. It is, as shown in 1875 by Oglialoro, a mixture of an oil C₁₀H₁₆, boiling at 158°-163°, which is present to a very small amount, and two oils of the formula C₁₃H₂₄, boiling at 262°-265° C. One of the latter deviates the plane of polarization strongly to the left, and yields the crystallized compound C₁₅H₂₄ 2 HCl, melting at 118° C. The other hydrocarbon is less lævogyrate and cannot be combined with HCl.

One part of oil of cubebs, diluted with about 20 parts of bisulphide of carbon, assumes at first a greenish, and afterwards a blue coloration, if one drop of a mixture of concentrated sulphuric and nitric acids (equal weight of each acid) is shaken with the solution.

The oil distilled from old cubebs on cooling at length deposits large, transparent, inodorous octohedra of camphor of cubebs, C₃₀H₄₈ + 2 OH₂, belonging to the rhombic system. They melt at 65° and may be sublimed at 148°. We have not succeeded in obtaining them by keeping the oil of fresh cubebs for two years in contact with water, to which a little alcohol and nitric acid was added.

Another constituent of cubebs is Cubebin, crystals of which may sometimes be seen in the pericarp even with a common lens. It was discovered by Soubeiran and Capitaine in 1839; it is an inodorous substance, crystallizing in small needles or scales, melting at 125°, having a bitter taste in alcoholic solution; it dissolves freely in boiling alcohol, but is mostly deposited upon cooling; it requires 30 parts of cold ether for solution, and is also abundantly soluble in chloroform. We found this solution to be slightly lævogyre; it turns red on addition of concentrated sulphuric acid. If the solution of cubebin in chloroform is shaken with dry pentoxide of phosphorus, it turns blue and gradually becomes red by the influence of moisture. Cubebin is nearly insoluble in cold, but slightly soluble in hot water. Bernatzik (1866) obtained from cubebs 0·40 per cent. of cubebin, Schmidt (1870) 2·5 per cent. The crystals, which are deposited in an alcoholic or ethereal extract of cubebs, consist of cubebin in an impure state. Cubebin is devoid of any remarkable therapeutic action. Its composition, according to Weidel (1877) answers to the formula C₁₀H₁₀O₃; by melting it with caustic potash, cubebin is resolved as follows:—

The resin extracted from cubebs consists of an indifferent portion, nearly 3 per cent., and of Cubebic Acid, amounting to about 1 per cent. of the drug. Both are amorphous, and so, according to Schmidt, are the salts of cubebic acid. Bernatzik however, found some of them, as that of barium, to be crystallizable. Schulze (1873) prepared cubebic acid from the crystallized sodium-salt, but was unable to get it other than amorphous. The resins, the indifferent as well as the acid, possess the therapeutic properties of the drug.

Schmidt further pointed out the presence in cubebs, of gum (8 per cent.), fatty oil, and malates of magnesium and calcium.

Commerce—Cubebs were imported into Singapore in 1872 to the extent of 3062 cwt., of which amount 2348 cwt. were entered as from Netherlands India. The drug was re-shipped during the same year to the amount of 2766 cwt., the quantity exported to the United Kingdom being 1180 cwt., to the United States of America 1244 cwt., and to British India 104 cwt.[2199] In the previous year, a larger quantity was shipped to India than to Great Britain.

Uses—Cubebs are much employed in the treatment of gonorrhœa. The drug is usually administered in powder; less frequently in the form of ethereal or alcoholic extract, or essential oil.

Bernatzik and Schmidt, whose chemical and therapeutical experiments have thrown much light on the subject, have shown that the efficacy of cubebs being dependent on the indifferent resin and cubebic acid, preparations which contain the utmost amount of these bodies and exclude other constituents of the drug, are to be preferred. They would reject the essential oil, as they find its administration devoid of therapeutic effects.

The preparations which consequently are to be recommended, are the berries deprived of their essential oil and constituents soluble in water, and then dried and powdered; an alcoholic extract prepared from the same, or the purified resins.

Adulteration—Cubebs are not much subject to adulteration, though it is by no means rare that the imported drug contains an undue proportion of the inert stalks (rachis)[2200] that require to be picked out before the berries are ground. Dealers judge of cubebs by the oiliness and strong characteristic smell of the berries when crushed. Those which have a large proportion of the pale, smooth, ripe berries, which look dry when broken, are to be avoided.

We have occasionally found in the commercial drug a small, smooth two-celled fruit, of the size, shape, and colour of cubebs, but wanting the long pedicel. A slight examination suffices to recognize it as not being cubebs. We have also met with some cubebs of larger size than the ordinary sort, much shrivelled, with a stouter and flattened pedicel, one and a half times to twice as long as the berry. The drug has an agreeable odour different from that of common cubebs, and a very bitter taste. From a comparison with herbarium specimens, we judge that it may possibly be derived from Piper crassipes Korthals (Cubeba crassipes Miq.), a Sumatran species.

The fruits of Piper Lowong Bl. (Cubeba Lowong Miq.), a native of Java, and those of P. ribesioides Wall. (Cubeba Wallichii Miq.) are extremely cubeb-like.[2201] Those of Piper caninum A. Dietr. (Cubeba canina Miq.), a plant of wide distribution throughout the Malay Archipelago as far as Borneo, for a specimen of which we have to thank Mr. Binnendyk of Buitenzorg, are smaller than true cubebs, and have stalks only half the diameter of the berry.

In the south of China the fruits of Laurus Cubeba Lour. have been frequently mistaken by Europeans for cubebs. The tree which affords them is unknown to modern botanists; Meissner refers it doubtfully to the genus Tetranthera.[2202]

Ashantee Pepper, African Cubebs, or
West African Black Pepper.

This spice is the fruit of Piper Clusii Cas. DC. (Cubeba Clusii Miq.), a species of wide distribution in tropical Africa, most abundantly occurring in the country of the Niamniam, about 4° to 5° N. lat., and 28° to 29° E. long. Its splendid red fruit bunches are spoken of with admiration by Schweinfurth,[2203] who states that Piper Clusii is one of the characteristic and most conspicuous plants of those regions. The dried fruit is a round berry having a general resemblance to common cubebs but somewhat smaller, less rugose, attenuated into a slender pedicel once or twice as long as the berry and usually curved. The berries are crowded around a common stalk or rachis; they are of an ashy-grey tint, and have a hot taste and the odour of pepper. According to Stenhouse, they contain piperin and not cubebin.[2204]

The fruit of Piper Clusii was known as early as 1364 to the merchants of Rouen and Dieppe, who imported it from the Grain Coast, now Liberia,[2205] under the name of pepper. The Portuguese likewise exported it from Benin as far back as 1485, as Pimienta de rabo, i.e. tailed pepper, and attempted in vain to sell it in Flanders.[2206] Clusius received from London a specimen of this drug, of which he has left a good figure in his Exotica.[2207] He says that its importation was forbidden by the King of Portugal for fear it should depreciate the pepper of India. The spice was also known to Gerarde and Parkinson; in our times it has been afresh brought to notice by the late Dr. Daniell.[2208] In tropical Western Africa it is used as a condiment, and might easily be collected in large quantities, provided it should prove a good substitute for pepper.[2209]

HERBA MATICO.

Matico.

Botanical Origin—Piper angustifolium [2210]

History—The styptic properties of this plant are said to have been discovered by a Spanish soldier named Matico,[2211] who having applied some of the leaves to his wounds, observed that the bleeding was thereby arrested; hence the plant came to be called Yerba or Palo del Soldado (soldier’s herb or tree). The story is not very probable, but it is current in many parts of South America, and its allusion is not confined to the plant under notice.

The hæmostatic powers of matico, which are not noticed in the works of Ruiz and Pavon, were first recognized in Europe by Jeffreys,[2212] a physician of Liverpool, in 1839, but they had already attracted attention in North America as early as 1827.

Description—Matico, as it arrives in commerce, consists of a compressed, coherent, brittle mass of leaves and stems, of a light green hue and pleasant herby odour. More closely examined, it is seen to be made up of jointed stems bearing lanceolate, acuminate leaves, cordate and unequal at the base, and having very short stalks. The leaves are rather thick, with their whole upper surface traversed by a system of minute sunk veins, which divide it into squares and give it a tessellated appearance. On the under side, these squares form a corresponding series of depressions which are clothed with shaggy hairs. The leaves attain a length of about 6 inches by 1½ inches broad. The flower and fruit spikes which are often 4 to 5 inches long, are slender and cylindrical with the flowers or fruits densely packed. The leaves of matico have a bitterish aromatic taste; their tissue shows numerous cells, filled with essential oil.[2213]

Chemical Composition—The leaves yield on an average 27 per cent.[2214] of essential oil, which we find slightly[2215] dextrogyre; a large proportion of it distills at 180° to 200° C., the remainder becoming thickish. Both portions are lighter than water; but another specimen of the oil of matico which we had kept for some years, sinks in water. We have observed that in winter the oil deposits remarkable crystals of a camphor, more than half an inch in length, fusible at 103° C.; they belong to the hexagonal system, and have the odour and taste of the oil from which they separate.

Matico further affords, according to Marcotte (1864),[2216] a crystallizable acid, named Artanthic Acid, besides some tannin. The latter is made evident by the dark brown colour which the infusion assumes on addition of ferric chloride. The leaves likewise contain resin, but as shown by Stell in 1858, neither piperin, cubebin, nor any analogous principle such as the so-called Maticin formerly supposed to exist in them.

Commerce—The drug is imported in bales and serons by way of Panama. Among the exports of the Peruvian port of Arica in 1877, we noticed 195 quintales (19,773 lb) of Matico.

Uses—Matico leaves, previously softened in water, or in a state of powder, are sometimes employed to arrest the bleeding of a wound. The infusion is taken for the cure of internal hæmorrhage.

Substitutes—Several plants have at times been brought into the market under the name of matico. One of these is Piper aduncum L.[2217] (Artanthe adunca Miq.), of which a quantity was imported into London from Central America in 1863, and first recognized by Bentley (1864). In colour, odour, and shape of leaf it nearly agrees with ordinary matico; but differs in that the leaves are marked beneath by much more prominent ascending parallel nerves, the spaces between which are not rugose but comparatively smooth and nearly glabrous. In chemical characters, the leaves of P. aduncum appear to accord with those of P. angustifolium.

Piper aduncum is a plant of wide distribution throughout Tropical America. Under the name of Nhandi or Piper longum it was mentioned by Piso in 1648[2218] on account of the stimulant action of its leaves and roots,—a property which causes it to be still used in Brazil, where however no particular styptic virtues seem to be ascribed to it.[2219] The fruits are there employed in the place of cubebs. Sloane’s figure[2220] of “Piper longum, arbor folio latissimo” also shows Piper aduncum.

According to Triana, Piper lanceæfolium HBK. (Artanthe Miq.), and another species not recognized, yield matico in New Granada.[2221] Waltheria glomerata Presl (Sterculiaceæ) is called Palo del Soldado at Panama and its leaves are used as a vulnerary.[2222] In Riobamba and Quito, Eupatorium glutinosum Lamarck, is also called Chusalonga or Matico.[2223]