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 Rihes, 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 j 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 
