582 PIPERACE^. 



The grains of white pepper are of rather larger size than those of 

 black, and of a warm greyish tint. They are nearly spherical or a little 

 flattened. At the base the skin of the fruit is thickened into a blunt 

 prominence, whence about 12 light stripes run meridian-like towards 

 the depressed summit. If the skin is scraped off, the dark-brown testa 

 is seen enclosing the hard translucent albumen. In anatomical struc- 

 ture, as well as in taste and smell, white pepper agrees with black, 

 which in fact it represents in a rather more fully-grown state. 



White pepper appears to afford on. an average not more than 19 per 

 cent, of essential oil, but to be richer in piperin, of which Cazeneuve 

 and Caillol (1877) extracted as much as 9 per cent. The amount of 

 ash yielded by white pepper is I'l per cent, on an average, that is to 

 say, considerably less than by black pepper. 



FRUCTUS PIPERIS LONGI. 



Piper longum ; Long Pepper ; F. Poivre long ; G. Langer Pfefer. 



Botanical Origin — Piper offixinarum C. DC. (Ghavica ^ offici- 

 narur)i Miq.), a dicecious shrubby plant, with ovate-oblong acuminate 

 leaves, attenuated at the base, and having pinnate nerves. It is a 

 native of the Indian Archipelago, as Java, Sumatra, Celebes and Timor. 

 Long pepper is the fruit spike, collected and dried shortly before it 

 reaches maturity. 



Pijjer longum L' (Ghavica Roxburghii Miq.), a shrub indigenous to 

 Malabar, Ceylon, Eastern Bengal, Timor and the Philippines, also yields 

 long pepper, for the sake of which it is cultivated along the eastern and 

 western coasts of India. It may be distinguished from the previous 

 species by its 5 -nerved leaves, cordate at the base.^ 



History — A drug termed IleVe/ot juaKpov, Piper longum, was known 

 to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and may have been the same as the 

 Long Pepper of modern times. 



In the Latin verses bearing the name of Macer Floridus,'* which were 

 probably written in the 10th century, mention is made of Black, White, 

 and Long Pepper. The last-named spice, or Macropiper, is named by 

 Simon of Genoa,® who was physician to Pope Nicolas IV. and chaplain 

 to Boniface VIII. (a.d. 1288-1303), and travelled in the East for the 

 study of plants. Piper longum is also met with in the list of drugs ou 

 which (A.D. 1305) duty was levied at Pisa.^ Nicolo Conti of Venice, 

 who lived in India from 1419 to 1444, noticed Long Pepper.^ Sala- 

 dinus * in the middle of the 15th century enumerates long pepper among 

 the drugs necessary to be kept by apothecaries, and it has had a place 

 in the pharmacopoeias to the present time. 



^ The genus C/iav/ca separated from P/per * Choulant, Macer Florklus de Viribus 



by Miquel, has been re-united to it by Ilerbarurn, Lipsiae, 1832. 114. 



Casimir de CandoUe (Prod. xvi. s. 1). The ® Clavis Sanaiionis, Venet, 1510. 



latter genus is now composed of not fewer ^ Bonaini, Statuti inediti delta citta di 



than 620 species ! Pisa, iii. (1857) 492. 



^ Fig. in Bentley and Trimen's Med. '' Kunstmann, Kenntniss Indieiis im 15""* 



Plants, part 18 (1877). Jahrhundert, Miinchen, 1863. 40. 



^ For good figures of the two plants, see ^ gge Appendix. 

 Hayne's Arzney-Oewdchse, xiv. (1843) tab. 

 20. 21. 



