THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
OCTOBER,  1888. 
ANALYSIS  FOE  ADULTERATION  OF  COMMERCIAL 
PEPPER. 
By  James  Edgar  Stevenson  Bell,  Ph.  G. 
From  an  Inaugural  Essay. 
The  belief  that  most  of  the  spices  in  common  use  as  condiments  are 
largely  adulterated  is  quite  prevalent  and  rapidly  gaining  ground. 
This  is  especially  true  with  regard  to  the  most  familiar  and  largely 
used  of  all,  hlack  pepper,  which,  owing  to  its  color  and  structure,  is 
easily  adulterated.  It  is  very  important  that  all  articles  used  as  foods 
or  in  connection  with  them  should  be  as  pure  as  possible,  and  it  was 
with  a  view  of  determining  whether  the  popular  belief  is  true  with 
regard  to  the  familiar  spice  named,  that  the  writer  undertook  the  ex- 
amination herein  described.  In  order  to  make  the  results  as  represen- 
tative and  reliable  as  possible  the  samples  were  obtained  from  widely 
separated  sources.  Eleven  of  the  samples  were  procured  by  friends 
in  the  respective  cities  named  in  the  table  of  results,  and  forwarded  by 
mail.  They  were  bought  in  grocery  stores  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
trade,  the  object  being  to  get  a  fair  average  of  the  brands  in  common  use 
throughout  the  country.    The  remaining  samples  were  procured  here. 
Of  the  twenty  samples  employed,  all  were  examined  both  chemically 
and  physically. 
The  important  constituents  ot  pepper  are  an  alkaloid  (piperine),  the 
volatile  oil,  and  the  resin,  and  upon  these  ingredients  its  value  as  a 
condiment  depends.  It  was  not  deemed  necessary  for  the  purpose  in 
view  to  separate  the  piperine  and  resin,  nor  was  it  considered  import- 
ant to  estimate  the  volatile  oil  which  was  allowed  to  escape  during 
evaporation.  The  figures  indicating  the  percentage  of  moisture  are 
consequently  slightly  in  excess,  as  they  include  the  entire  loss  sus- 
tained by  the  ethereal  extract  in  evaporation. 
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