PIPER NIGRUM. 243 



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are 



combination with long pepper and ginger, under the name of 

 trikatu or the three acrids. In fact, as any reader who has gone 

 through these pages must have noticed, very few compound 



free from the three myrobalans, and the three 

 acrids, which seem to be added often without reason, and some- 

 times for the sake of rhyme. Black pepper is described as acrid, 

 pungent, hjt, dry, carminative and useful in intermittent fever, 

 hemorrhoids and dyspepsia. Externally it is used as a rubefacient 

 in alopecia and skin diseases. 



In intermittent fever, black pepper in doses of about a 

 drachm, is recommended to be given with the juice of the leaves 

 of Oct mum sanctum ( tulasi ), or Leucas lini folia ( dronapushpi ).* 

 It enters into the composition of numerous prescriptions for 

 dyspepsia, piles and indigestion. The following is an example. 



Prdnadd gudikd? Take of black pepper thirty- two tolas, 

 ginger twenty-four tolas, long pepper sixteen tolas, Piper Chaba 

 ( chavya ) eight tolas, leaves of Pinus Webbiana ( tdlisa ) eight 

 tolas, flowers of Mesua ferrea, (ndgakesara) four tolas, long 



pepper root sixteen tolas, leaves called tfjapatra and cinnamon 

 one tola each, cardamoms and the root of Andropogon muricatus, 

 ( usira ) two tolas each, old treacle two hundred and forty tolas ; 

 rub them together. Dose, about two drachms. This confection 

 is given in haemorrhoids. When there is coativeness and a sense 

 of heat, ohebulic myrobalan is substituted for the ginger in the 

 above prescription. 



The bald patches of alopecia are recommended to be ribbed 



vir^ir: l 



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