ACTIONS AND USES 583 



natural family Myrtaceae. The berries are about the size 

 of those of the Piper nigrum, have the same penetrating 

 aromatic odour, and hot, pungent taste, but are more 

 truly aromatic and less acrid. They contain an acrid fixed 

 oil, and about 6 per cent, of volatile oil, with traces of an 

 alkaloid, having the odour of conine (Fliickiger). Oil of 

 pimento contains about 70 per cent, of aphenol, eugenol, 

 and is sometimes substituted for oil of cloves. 



Capsicum the dried ripe fruit of Capsicum minimum 

 is also known as Chili pepper, chillies, Guinea or pod pepper. 

 The red pods are filled with numerous small round or 

 ovoid red-brown seeds. Both pericarp and seeds are 

 pungent, and when ground constitute the familiar Cayenne 

 pepper, which owes its pungent acridity and irritant pro- 

 perties to an acrid non- volatile substance, capsaicin (C 9 H 14 2 ), 

 and an alkaloid, capsicine, resembling conine in odour. 



ACTIONS AND USES. The peppers are irritants, stimulating 

 stomachics, carminatives, and rubefacients. Large doses, 

 especially in carnivora and omnivora, are irritant poisons, 

 inflaming the alimentary tract and sometimes also the urino- 

 genital mucous membrane. That they are especially 

 poisonous to pigs is a popular error. Properly regulated 

 doses promote salivary and gastric secretions, are stomachic 

 and carminative, and during their excretion stimulate the 

 urino-genital mucous membrane. Rubbed into the skin 

 they cause redness, irritation, and swelling. The several 

 peppers differ in the intensity of their action. The black 

 is more active than the white and long peppers, which are 

 of nearly equal strength. Pimento is less active, while 

 capsicum is more irritant than black pepper. In virtue 

 of its stimulant in-contact effect, and its rendering the urine 

 antiseptic, cubebs checks irritation and discharges from the 

 urino-genital mucous membrane. 



Black pepper (the variety chiefly used in veterinary 

 practice) is administered in simple indigestion, and for 

 obviating the disagreeable taste and nauseating effects of 

 various drugs. It is not now given as a sialogogue, nor for 

 the object of increasing sexual appetite, which, when 

 defective, may usually be restored, not by irritating drugs, 

 but by measures which improve general vigour. It ought 



