96 
Spurious  Cubebs. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Feb.,  1886. 
tions  were  substantially  identical,  he  examined  the  products  of  their 
artificial  (peptic)  digestion,  which  proved  to  be  identical  also,  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  therefore  that  they  are,  chemically,  very  closely 
related. 
3.  Other  Prote'ids. — In  a  comparative  examination  of  the  products 
of  peptic  digestion  of  the  two  milks,  by  the  optical  method,  the  author 
found  the  rotation  to  be  50  per  cent,  greater  in  the  case  of  the  products 
from  woman's  milk,  whence  he  concludes  that  in  regard  to  the  pro- 
teids, not  peptones,  the  two  milks  are  differently  composed.  He  sug- 
gests that  the  difference  may  be  chiefly  in  respect  of  the  lactoalbumi- 
noi'd  recently  described  by  Sebelien  (ibid.,  9,  403). — Jour.  Chem.  Soc, 
1885,  p.  1149;  Zeits.  physiol  Chem.,  IX.,  591. 
SPURIOUS  CUBEBS. 
By  William  Elborne, 
Assistant  Lecturer  on  Materia  Medica  an  I  Pharmacy,  Owens  College,  and 
H.  Wilson. 
(Read  before  the  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference.) 
In  a  paper1  recently  published  in  the  Pharmaceutical  Journal  on 
this  subject,  Mr.  E.  M.  Holmes  has  drawn  attention  to  the  recent 
adulteration  of  cubebs  with  an  obnoxious  piperaceous  fruit  referred 
by  Mr.  W.  Kirkby2  to  Piper  crassipes  f,  and  the  lauraceous  berries  of 
Daphnidium  Cubeba.3 
The  following  are  the  leading  characteristics  of  these  fruits  as  com- 
pared with  the  genuine  drug. 
Daphnidium  Cubeba. 
Same  size  as  cubebs.    Stalk  articu- 
lated, usually  absent.    Contains  no 
starch.     Ta^te,  faintly   like  oil  of 
lemon — afterwards  bitter. 
Piper  crassipes  ? 
Slightly  larger,  of  a  lighter  color, 
the  persistent  stalk  more  flattened. 
Taste  bitter,  odor  resembling  mace. 
Microscopically  it  differs  in  having 
ten  rows  of  ceils  in  the  endocarp  in- 
stead of  four.4 
In  the  same  paper  Mr.  Holmes  has  also  given  good  practical  tests 
whereby  these  aduHerants  may  be  readily  detected  in  cubebs  occurring 
in  the  form  of  powder,  founded  upon  the  blue  coloration  yielded  by 
1  Phar.  Jour.,  [3],  xv,  p.  909;  Am.  Jour.  Phar.,  1885,  302. 
2  Phar.  Jour.,  [3],  xv,  p.  653;  Am.  Jour.  Phar.,  1885,  353. 
3  Figured  in  Hanbury's  "Science  Papers,"  p.  247. 
4  Kirkby,  loc.  cit. 
