the wasted invalid, but not by the hearty and weather-proof gatherer of plants. While he enjoys a “ fine 
fresh May morning” with as keen a relish as old Walton’s Piscator, he bears up against the sterner phases 
of our spring with the elasticity which health and eager pursuit so naturally confer. Indeed, if we might 
trust the anonymous author of the following sonnet, this same plant-gathering is so captivating, that your 
gatherer sometimes forgets for a while the smiles of beauty which await him at home. But this we think a 
libel on botanists, and have no doubt that the poet, when he composed it, was merely indulging in the 
agreeable license of his guild. 
HERBCRAFT. 
The botanist, from morn to dewy eve, 
Treads the thick forest, and the grassy bank; 
And surely would he deem it sore unthank 
To Flora sweet, his grateful task to leave, 
Ere the shrill bat hath chirped the parting day, 
And sleepy flowrets shut their gorgeous lids. 
Then to his homely cot he wends his way, 
With spoil deep-laden ; bright-eyed Daphne chides 
His absence: yet so graciously doth blame 
Issue from rosy lips with silver sound, 
That every soul might wish just such a dame 
To chide within his dwelling might be found ; 
For happiness, if more than empty name, 
Is love, by love of nature circled round. 
Economical Uses. All the species yield a spice of the most pungent quality, but the well-known 
condiment sold under the name of Cayenne Pepper is prepared from the fruit of the Capsicum baccatum, or 
Bird-pepper, which is a shrubby plant, of humble growth, not unlike the present species, but producing 
small ovate berries. These are gathered when ripe, and dried in the sun, pounded, and mixed with salt. 
The composition is then put into stopped bottles, and is commonly known by the name of “ Cayan Butter.” 
A mixture of sliced cucumbers, eschalots or onions, cut very small; a little lime juice, or madeira wine; 
with a few pods of bird-pepper well mashed and mixed with the liquor, seldom fails to excite the most 
languid appetite in the West Indies, where it is called man-dram. A useful and elegant condiment is made 
by dissolving common salt in a strong infusion of capsicum, previously strained, and afterwards allowing it 
to crystallize. 
Qualities and Chemical Properties. — Capsicum is of a fiery hot, somewhat aromatic taste, and 
has an extremely pungent odour. Precipitates are produced in the infusion of capsicum, by infusion of galls; 
nitrate of silver; oxymuriate of mercury; acetate of lead; the sulphates of iron, copper, and zinc; ammonia, 
carbonate of potass, and alum : but not by sulphuric, nitric, or muriatic acid. 
Adulterations. — Red lead, which is sometimes mixed with powdered capsicum, may be detected by 
digesting it in acetic acid, and adding to the solution sulphuret of ammonia, which will produce, if any lead 
be present, a dark-coloured precipitate ; or the fraud may be discovered by boiling some of the suspected 
pepper in vinegar, and after filtering the solution, adding to it sulphate of soda, when a white precipitate 
will be formed, which, after being dried and exposed to heat, and mixed with a little charcoal, will yield a 
metallic globule of lead. a 
Medical Properties and Uses. — Capsicum is a powerful stimulant, and is most advantageously 
given in atonic gout, in palsy, tympanites, dropsy, and in the debilitated stages of fever. From five to ten 
grains, in a pill, is the usual mode of administration ; and although it is the hottest of all the peppers, it has 
but little tendency to affect the head: it is therefore a useful stimulant in some forms of dyspepsia. It may 
be advantageously combined with steel in scrofulous constitutions, and is much used as an adjunct to cin- 
chona bark for intermittents. Its sensible effects are heat in the stomach, and a general glow all over the 
body, without much affecting the pulse ; and as a gargle it cleans, without impeding the healing of the 
ulcers of the fauces. The pods are sometimes employed as an ingredient in rubefacient cataplasms for the 
feet, to relieve the coma of fever ; chronic ophthalmia is sometimes benefitted by a weak infusion ; but 
the gargle, when used in sore-throat, has occasionally produced violent inflammation, not easy to be con- 
trolled. 
Dose. — From twelve drops of the tincture to half a drachm : and 3ij. to half a pint of water, form a 
good gargle. 
Off. Prep. — Tinctura Capsici. L. D. 
a Accum ; Thomson. 
