THE  AMEBIC  AN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
JUNE,  1913 
PEPPER:  WHY  THE  OFFICIAL  ST  A  xftVRDS  NFOR  PER- 
CENTAGE OF  NITROGEN  IN  THE  ETHER  EXTRACT 
SFIOULD  BE  MODIFIED  OR  ABANDONED. 
By  Charles  H.  La  Wall. 
The  standards  for  black  pepper  as  given  in  Circular  No.  19 
of  the  Bureau  of  Chemistry  of  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture,  provide,  among  other  things,  that  one  hundred  parts 
of  the  non-volatile  ether  extract  should  contain  .not  less  than  3.25 
parts  of  nitrogen.  Under  White  Pepper  the  analogous  requirement 
is  "  one  hundred  parts  of  the  non-volatile  ether  extract  contain  not 
less  than  4.0  parts  of  nitrogen." 
This  requirement,  which  is  intended  to  be  a  measure  of  the 
piperine  in  the  ether  extract,  was  established  through  work  done 
and  suggestions  made  by  A.  L.  Winton  in  1896,1  1897  2  and  1898,3 
at  which  time  Dr.  Winton  was  connected  with  the  Connecticut 
Agricultural  Experiment  Station. 
According  to  Dr.  Winton's  first  report  upon  the  subject,1  he 
reported  a  sample  of  pure  black  pepper  in  which  the  nitrogen  in 
the  ether  extract  was  2.64  per  cent,  and  a  sample  of  a  pure  white 
pepper,  in  which  the  nitrogen  in  the  ether  extract  was  3.25  per 
cent.  Subsequent  work  upon  the  subject  led  to  the  establishment 
of  the  present  official  standards,  for  the  mean  of  a  number  of  de- 
terminations showed  a  figure  of  3.96  per  cent,  for  black  pepper  and 
4.31  per  cent,  for  white  pepper  in  1897  2  and  3.29  per  cent,  for  black 
pepper  and  4.18  per  cent,  for  white  pepper  in  1898. 3 
Later  work  done  by  Doolittle  (Michigan  Dairy  and  Food  Com- 
mission Bulletin  94)  practically  bears  out  Winton's  previously  sug- 
gested standards. 
Late  in  the  year  19 12  my  attention  was  drawn  to  the  subject  by 
1  Bulletin  123,  Conn.  Agric.  Exp.  Sta.,  1896,  p.  32. 
22ist  Ann.  Rep*  Conn.  Agric.  Exp.  Sta.,  1897,  p.  18. 
3  22nd  Ann.  Rep.  Conn.  Agric.  Exp.  Sta.,  1898,  p.  1894. 
(243) 
