PIPER NIGRUM. ORD. XLIV. Piperita. 7 723 
the berries ripen, and spread them to dry upon mats, or upon the 
ground. By drying they become black, and more or less shrivelled, 
according to their degree of maturity. These are imported here 
under the name of black pepper. 
White pepper ® is the ripe and perfect berries stripped of their 
outer coats: for this purpose the berries are steeped for about a 
fortnight in water, till by swelling their outer coverings burst ; 
after which they are easily separated, and the pepper is carefully 
dried by exposure to the sun. Pepper which has fallen to the 
ground over-ripe loses its outer coat, and is sold as an inferior 
kind of white pepper. 
Of these pungent hot spices the black sort is the hottest and 
strongest, and most commonly made use of for medicinal as well 
as culinary purposes. They differ from most of the other spices 
in this, that their. pungency resides not in the volatile parts, or 
essential oil, butin a substance of a more fixed kind, which does 
not rise in the heat of boiling water.* This fixed substance is pro- 
bably the resinous part: the aromatic odorous matter seems to 
depend upon the essential oil. The distilled oil smells strongly 
of the pepper, but has very little acrimony; the remaining decoc- 
tion, inspissated, yields an extract of considerable pungency. A 
tincture made in rectified spirit is extremely hot and fiery; a few 
drops of it set the mouth as it were in a flame. : . 
Some have supposed Pepper to be less heating to the system 
than other aromatics; and the learned Gaubius asserts, that on 
taking it in large quantities he never found it to warm his stomach, 
nor to increase the frequency of his pulse.* But Dr. Cullen 
affirms, that when he took this spice, even in a small quantity, 
® White Pepper was formerly thought to be a different species from the black, 
and was sold at the sales of the East India Company (who have the monopoly of 
the Sumatran pepper trade) for treble the price of the black. Marsden, l.c. - 
. © Gaubius found that the Pepper required to be boiled forty-three times in fresh 
quantities of water before its whole pungency was extracted. Adversar. p. 52. . 
o£. c. p. 73. 
