NEW 
METHOD OF 
ADMINISTERING CUBEBS. 
315 
ART. L.— NEW METHOD OF ADMINISTERING CUBEBS. 
By M. Labelonye, Pharmaceutist, Paris. 
The efficacy of the Piper cubeba, the stimulant virtue of 
which appears to operate specifically upon mucous membranes, 
and particularly that of the genito-urinary organs, is well es- 
tablished at the present day, in acute and chronic inflamma- 
tory affections of these parts. 
This substance, nevertheless, is one of those to which phar- 
maceutical chemists have paid very little attention, and no one 
of them has made an attempt to render its administration more 
convenient, by improving the forms of preparation, while a 
large number of substances of less interest in a therapeutic 
point of view are capable of being exhibited under many 
forms, more or less agreeable. 
It is usually administered in powder, and there is no phy- 
sician who has not been embarrassed in his practice from the 
difficulty he has encountered in getting his patient to take a 
sufficient amount to render it efficient, in consequence of the 
repugnance and disgust created by it. 
It has appeared to us that the subject was worthy the at- 
tention of the pharmaceutist, who is desirous of advancing the 
interests of pharmacy, and that some researches into the me- 
thods by which it could be rendered more available, would be 
of infinite value to the science of medicine, founded upon the 
power which might exist of isolating the active principles, 
and separating them from such as are inert, thereby saving 
the stomach the effort necessary to accomplish this operation. 
There is another consideration, of which we have not lost 
sight — it is, that cubebs, like all vegetable matter, is affected 
by physical influences; and that it exhibits, in its chemical 
composition, marked differences, which render its action ex- 
tremely variable. By employing, on the contrary, the active 
principles only, upon the amount of which depends the greater 
or less activity of this substance, more positive results are ob- 
