THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
MAY,  1865. 
ON  CAPSICUM  ANNUUM. 
By  David  Preston. 
(An  Inaugural  Essay,  presented  to  the  Philada.  College  of  Pharmacy,  1865.) 
Capsicum  has  been  the  subject  of  many  experiments,  with  a 
view  to  determine  what  principle  gives  activity  to  the  fruit,  and 
whether  it  is  due  to  a  crystallizable  substance,  alkaline  or  neu- 
tral, or  to  a  resin,  and  various  opinions  have  been  given  in  re- 
gard to  it. 
Soon  after  the  discovery  of  alkaloids  in  the  vegetable  king- 
dom, it  was  stated  that  this  fruit  contained  one,  as  will  be  seen 
by  the  following,  extracted  from  M.  Oersted's  paper  in  vol.  vi., 
Journal  de  Pharmacie,  for  1820,  page  372. 
"One  of  my  friends,"  says  M.  Oersted,  "has  also  found  a 
new  alkali  of  great  acrimony  in  the  fruit  of  Capsicum  annuum. 
This  alkali  is  but  slightly  soluble  in  water  and  possesses  greater 
capacity  of  saturation  than  the  alkalies  of  the  same  class.  It 
forms  with  protoxide  of  lead  and  muriatic  acid  a  triple  salt 
which  preserves  all  the  acrimony  of  the  vegetable  alkali." 
A  few  years  previous  to  this  statement,  (1816,)  the  fruit  was 
analyzed  by  Bucholz  and  Maurach,  and  the  following  year  by 
Braconnot. 
Bucholz  acted  upon  the  fruit  with  alcohol,  evaporated  the 
alcoholic  solution  to  an  extract,  treated  this  with  ether,  and  al- 
lowed the  ether  to  evaporate ;  the  result  he  called  a  "  soft  acrid 
resin,"  or  capsicin.  Braconnot  obtained  the  same,  and  called  it 
an  "  acrid  oil." 
Prof.  Procter,  a  few  years  since,  made  an  investigation  of  the 
11 
