part 27

(1877).

[2183] _Les Prairies d’or_, i. 341.

[2184] _Géographie_, trad. par Jaubert, i. 51. 89.

[2185] Meyer, _Geschichte der Botanik_, iii. 537.

[2186] _Munimenta Gildhallæ Londoniensis; Liber albus_, i. (1859, State papers) 230.

[2187] Capmany, _Memorias sobre la Marina, etc., de Barcelona_, i. (Madrid, 1779) 44.

[2188] Bourquelot, _Etudes sur les foires de la Champagne, Mémoires etc. de l’Institut_, v. (1865) 288.

[2189] Rogers, _Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England_, i. 627-8, ii. 544.—To get some idea of the relative value of commodities then and now, multiply the ancient prices by 8.

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]

[2190] _Liber niger Scaccarii_, Lond. 1771, i. 478.—A translation may be found in the _Chronicles of London Bridge_, 1827, 155.

[2191] _Archiv der Pharmacie_, 201 (1872) 441 and 211 (1877) 101.

[2192] Choulant, _Macer Floridus_, etc., Lips. 1832, 188.

[2193] _Compendium aromatariorum_, Bonon., 1488.

[2194] Richard, _Beiträge zur Geschichte der Apotheken_, 1825. 124.

[2195] Miquel, _Commentarii phytographici_, i. (Lugd. Bat., 1839).

[2196] In Duncan’s _Edinburgh New Dispensatory_, ed. 2. 1804, _Piper Cubeba_ is very briefly described, but with no allusion to its possessing any special medicinal properties. In the 6th edition of the same work (1811) it was altogether omitted. See also Murray’s _System of Mat. Med. and Pharm._ i. (1810) 266.

[2197] _Dictionary of the Indian Islands_, 1856. 117.—Mr. Crawfurd himself communicated to the _Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal_ of 1818 (xiv. 32) a paper making known the “wonderful success” with which cubebs had been used in gonorrhœa.

=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.

[2198] We are indebted for some particulars under this head to our friends Mr. Binnendyk, of the Buitenzorg Botanical Garden near Batavia, and Dr. De Vry.

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:—

C₁₀H₁₀O₃ · 5 O = CO₂ · C₂H₄O₂ · C₆H₃(OH)₂COOH. Acetic Protocatechuic Acid. Acid.

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.

[2199] _Straits Settlements Blue Book for 1872._ 294. 338.—There are no statistics for showing the _total import_ of cubebs into the United Kingdom.

[2200] They yielded to Schmidt 1·7 per cent. of oil and 3 per cent. of resin.

[2201] Figured in Nees von Esenbeck, _Plantæ medicinales_, Düsseldorf, i. (1828), tab. 22. A different figure is given by Miquel, _Comment. phytogr._ (1839), tab. 3.

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]

[2202] De Candolle, _Prod._ xv. sect. i. 199; Hanbury in _Pharm. Journ._ iii. (1862) 205, with figure; also _Science Papers_, 247.

[2203] _Im Herzen Afrikas_, i. (1874) 507; ii. 399.

[2204] _Pharm. Journ._ xiv. (1855) 363.

[2205] Margry, _Les navigations françaises et la révolution maritime du XIVᵉ au XVIᵉ siècle_, 1867. 26.

[2206] Giovanni di Barros, _l’Asia_, i. (Venet. 1561) 80.

[2207] Lib. i. c. 22, p. 184 (1605).

[2208] _Pharm. Journ._ xiv. (1855) 198.

[2209] One cask of it was offered for sale in London as “_Cubebs_,” 11 Feb. 1858.

HERBA MATICO.

_Matico._

=Botanical Origin=—_Piper angustifolium_[2210] Ruiz et Pavon (_Artanthe elongata_ Miq.), a shrub growing in the moist woods of Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, New Granada and Venezuela, also cultivated in some localities. A slightly different, somewhat stouter form of the plant with leaves 7 to 8 inches long (var. α. _cordulatum_ Cas. DC.), occurs in the Brazilian provinces of Bahia, Minas Geraes and Ceará, as well as in Peru and the northern parts of South America.

[2210] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s _Med. Plants_,