i94 
Oil  from  Spurious  Cubebs. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pbarm. 
I       April,  1913. 
color  was  yellowish  brown.    It  is  stated  that  the  difference  is  still 
more  easily  perceptible  in  the  ethereal  extract  of  the  fruit,  of  which 
extract,  moreover,  the  genuine  cubebs  yield  more  (20  to  25  p.  c.) 
than  does  the  spurious  fruit  (only  about  15  p.  c).  There  was 
also  a  difference  in  the  microscopical  characters  of  the  various 
species. 
The  authors  suspect  that  the  spurious  cubebs  consist  partlv  of 
the  fruit  of  Piper  ribesoides,  Wall,  and  partly  of  an  as  yet  unknown 
variety  of  Piper.  The  latter,  when  subjected  to  steam  distillation,4 
yielded  4  p.  c.  of  essential  oil  of  a  decided  mace  odor:  d  0.894. 
od+i6°,  sap.  v.  0,  ester  v.  after  acetyl.  56.1.  Genuine  cubebs, 
distilled  for  purposes  of  comparison,  yielded  more  than  twice  that 
percentage  of  oil  with  sp.  g.  0.917.  and  opt.  rot.  — 43 °. 
The  behavior  under  fractionation  of  the  two  distillates  also 
showed  marked  differences.  The  oil  from  the  spurious  cubebs 
began  to  boil  below  1600  ;  one-half  of  it  passed  over  up  to  20O=. 
and  a  further  30  p.  c.  between  2000  and  2700.  On  the  other  hand, 
of  the  oil  from  the  genuine  cubebs,  only  5  p.  c.  passed  over  below 
2000,  85  p.  c.  passing  over  between  200  and  270". 
The  surmise  that  the  false  fruits  might  be  identical  with  those 
of  Piper  Lowong,  Bl.,  which  were  distilled  by  Peinemann5  several 
years  ago.  proved  to  be  unfounded,  the  microscopical  structure  of 
the  two  Piper-species  being  entirely  different.  Umney  and  Potter 
conclude  that  certain  of  the  abnormal  oils  of  commerce  are  pro- 
duced from  mixtures  of  the  genuine  berries  either  with  this 
hitherto  unidentified,  or  with  other  varieties.  This  would  also 
explain  the  abnormality  of  the  Amsterdam  oil  referred  to  at  the 
beginning  of  this  paragraph. 
J.  Small 6  and  E.  M.  Holmes  7  also  give  their  views  on  the  same 
subject.  Small  has  examined  several  authentic  samples  of  genuine 
and  spurious  cubebs,  placed  at  his  disposal  by  the  Herbarium  and 
the  Museum  in  London  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society,  and.  basing 
himself  upon  his  observations  on  these,  has  examined  a  number  of 
commercial  samples. 
The  articles  by  Holmes  and  Small  are  of  purely  pharmacog- 
nostical  interest,  and  for  particulars  of  their  contents  we  must 
therefore  refer  to  the  originals. 
*P  erf  tun.  and  Essent.  Oil  Record.  3  (i9i2>>.  64. 
5  Arch,  der  Pharm..  234  (1896),  238. 
8  Pharmaceutical  Jonrn..  88  (1912).  639. 
7  P  erf  urn.  and  Essent.  Oil  Record.  3  (1912).  125. 
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