VIII 



PEPPERS 303 



alkaloid, but the consumers seem usually to prefer the 

 white pepper. This is perhaps due to the colour and 

 also probably because white pepper is less liable to 

 adulteration than black. Whole pepper seems practically 

 never to be adulterated, whether black or white, though 

 it is said that in India it is occasionally adulterated 

 with the dried fruits of Embelia Ribes, a common 

 climber in India and Malaya. Ground pepper, and what 

 is known as pepper dust, refuse, and waste fragments of 

 black pepper is, however, easily and often adulterated 

 with all kinds of rubbish, such as ground-up olive stones. 



Pepper as a spice is not only extensively used in the 

 kitchen, but largely also in the preserving business, 

 sausage-making, etc. 



Medicine. Its virtues as a drug are mentioned by 

 many early writers. Linschoten says, " Pepper is used 

 in the kitchen and in apothecaries' shops, although in 

 both places not as a meate or food, but for physic " ; 

 and proceeds to mention it 1 for indigestion, for mistiness 

 of the eyes, and other complaints. Sanskrit authors 

 describe it as acrid, pungent, hot, dry, carminative, and 

 useful in intermittent fever, haemorrhoids, and dyspepsia. 

 Externally it is used as a rubefacient in alopecia 

 and skin diseases in India. Dymock states that 

 Mohammedan writers describe it as a deobstruent, 

 resolvent, and an alexipharmic, as a nervine tonic 

 and a digestive, and believes it to be diuretic, an 

 emmenagogue and a stimulant in cases of snake-bite. 

 Externally it is used by the Mohammedans of India in 

 paralytic affections and in toothache as a mouth wash. 

 It is also recommended by many natives as a remedy 

 for cholera, as an aromatic stimulant, and many of the 

 Indian doctors of the present day value it in epidemics 

 of cholera in the form of a very strong infusion. 

 During an outbreak of cholera some years ago in 

 Singapore there was a great demand for " pepper-oil," a 

 distillate of black pepper, which was prepared in a 

 distillery in Singapore. 



Externally pepper is also used as an application to 



