334 Remarks on the Use of Piperine. 



I have just received the following valuable illustration of 

 the effect of piperine, from my friend Dr. J. R. Black, of 

 Philadelphia, which is an additional strong testimony of the 

 success of this medicine, in the cure of intermittent fevers. 



Mr. S. aged about forty years, during the first part of last 

 month, applied to me, with a severe quotidian fever, attended 

 with rejections from the stomach, and with violent pain, and 

 great determination of blood to the head, during the hot 

 stage, with cold feet and slight delirium. 



The case was treated with the lancet, emetics and purges, 

 which on the third day changed its type to the tertian. On 

 the day of intermission, sul. quinine was administered, which 

 was often rejected, while it always increased the patient's nau- 

 seau and head ache. Piperine was substituted in doses of 

 one grain every hour, to the number of ten a day. The par- 

 oxysms immediately ceased, and the patient was in a few days 

 discharged, radically cured. J. R. B. 



Numerous other cases might be quoted in which this medi- 

 cine has been employed, with the like happy results ; but I 

 think sufficient has been advanced, to satisfy the most scepti- 

 cal, of its active properties. 



Alcohol and sulphuric aether are the best menstrua, for the 

 active properties of the pepper, which very soon impart its 

 acrimony to these fluids. Mr. Brande gives alcohol and wa- 

 ter; I am surprised that Mr. Brande should have omitted 

 aether, since it is the most powerful solvent, and particularly 

 that he should quote water, since it requires five hundred and 

 fifty pints to extract the sapidity of one ib. of pepper. Water 

 appears to be the best solvent for the coloring matter, for after 

 pepper has been exhausted of its acrimony, by aether and al- 

 cohol, water will make a dark solution, which on evaporation, 

 produces an extract exhibiting, little of the pungency of 

 pepper. 



The piperine, employed in the above cases, I prepared ac- 

 cording to the following formula. 



Digest one pound of coarsely powdered black pepper, in 

 one gallon of alcohol, for ten days, distil off one half of the 

 alcohol in a water bath, add by degrees, diluted muriatic acid, 

 to hold in solution the piperine, then add water sufficient to 

 precipitate the resin, and separate the oil, a muriate of pipe- 

 rine remains in solution, concentrate this solution by evapora- 

 tion, and add pure potass to decompose it, and neutralise the 

 acid, when the piperine, in consequence of the diluted state of 



