118 NAT. ORDER. LURID.E. 



ling. They are sometimes used in their ripe state, when they form a 

 spice of hottest quality, known by the name of Cayenne Pepper, and 

 in tliis form it enters various compounds in medicine. The fruit of 

 Capsicum grossum are deemed better for pickling than the others, 

 the skin being thick, pulpy and tender. 



Medical Properties and Uses. The use of this and the other 

 species of Capsicum, which have long been employed for culinary 

 purposes, have but lately been adopted as a medicine. Cayeiine 

 Pepper, which is now so extensively at our tables, is the fruit of Cap- 

 sicum baccatum (Bird pepper) and differs not materially in its effects 

 from that of the species here given, for which it is often substi- 

 tuted. In hot climates, particularly in the West Indies and in some 

 parts of Spanish America, the Capsicum is eaten both with animal 

 and vegetable food in large quantities, and it enters so abundantly 

 into their sauses, that to a person unaccustomed to eat them, their 

 taste is intolerably hot. But in the climates of which the Capsi- 

 cum is a native, we are told that the free use of it is a salutary 

 practice, it being found to strengthen the stomach and assist diges- 

 tion. As an aromatic of the most acrid and stimulant kind, it 

 certainly is highly valuable, and can be employed to great advantage 

 in the treatment of rheuinatic and gouty cases, or to promote 

 excitement, where the bodily organs are languid and torpid. Mat- 

 son says. Capsicum "is the best and most efficient stimulant known, 

 and though freely employed, does not occasion any of the evil 

 consequenses which flow from the use of acrid, narcotic, or poison- 

 ous stimulants. Taken into the stomach, it produces a pleasant 

 sensation of warmth in that organ, which soon diffuses itself 

 throughout the whole system." It has the effect to equalize the 

 circulation, and hence its value in fever, inflammation, and all those 

 diseases which depend upon a morbid increase of blood in any 

 particular part of the body. By its equalizing influence, it reduces 

 a full and bounding pulse, or gives it force and vigor where it is 

 threat-like and feeble. 



