or even twice as long as itself. By this stalk the fruit is attached in considerable numbers (sometimes more than 50) to a common thickened stalk or rachis, about 1 inch long.

Commercial cubebs are spherical, sometimes depressed at the base, very slightly pointed at the apex, strongly wrinkled by the shrinking of the fleshy pericarp; they are of a greyish-brown or blackish hue, frequently covered with an ashy-grey bloom. The stalk is the elongated base of the fruit, and remains permanently attached. The common axis or rachis, which is almost devoid of essential oil, is also frequently mixed with the drug.

The skin of the fruit covers a hard, smooth brown shell containing the seed, which latter when developed, has a compressed spherical form, a smooth surface, and adheres to the pericarp only at the base; its apex either projects slightly or is pressed inwards. The albumen is solid, whitish, oily, and encloses a small embryo, below the apex. In the cubebs of the shops, the seed is mostly undeveloped and shrunken, and the pericarp nearly empty.

Cubebs have a strong, aromatic, persistent taste, with some bitterness and acridity. Their smell is highly aromatic and by no means disagreeable.

Microscopic Structure-This exhibits some peculiarities. The skin of the fruit below the epidermis, is made up of small, cubic, thickwalled cells, forming an interrupted row, and only half as large as in black pepper. The broad middle layer consists of small-celled undeveloped tissue, containing drops of oil, granules of starch, and crystalline groups of cubebin, probably also fat. This middle layer is interrupted by very large oil-cells, which frequently enclose needle-shaped crystals of cubebin, united in concentric groups. The much narrower inner layer consists of about four rows of somewhat larger, tangentiallyextended, soft cells, holding essential oil. Next to these comes the light-yellow brittle shell, formed of a densely packed row of encrusted, radially-arranged, elongated, thick-walled cells. Lastly, the embryo is covered with a thin brown membrane, and exhibits the structure and contents of that of Piper nigrum, excepting that in P. Cubeba the cells are rounder, and the crystals consist of cubebin and not of piperin.

Chemical Composition-The most obvious constituent of cubebs is the volatile oil, the proportion of which yielded by the drug, varies from 6 to 15 per cent. The causes of this great variation may be found in the constitution of the drug itself, as well as in the alterability of the oil, and the fact that its boiling point, 220 to 250° C., is so much higher than that of water. This oil, which is the source of the aroma of the fruit, is polymeric with oil of turpentine, and strongly deviates the ray of polarized light to the left. In cold weather, old oil of cubebs deposits large, rhombic octohedra of a substance which has been termed Camphor of Cubebs or Hydrate of Cubebene, having the composition C30H 48,2H2O; by long keeping we find it sometimes assumes the form of a viscid liquid, in this respect resembling anethol. The liquid portion of the oil, termed Cubeben, is indicated by the formula, C30H48.

Another constituent of cubebs is Cubebin, crystals of which may sometimes be seen in the pericarp even with a common lens. It was discovered by Soubeiran and Capitaine in 1839; it is an inodorous,

tasteless, neutral substance, crystallizing in small needles or scales, of a pearly lustre, nearly insoluble in cold but slightly soluble in hot water. It dissolves freely in boiling alcohol, but is mostly deposited upon cooling; it requires 30 parts of cold ether for solution. Bernatzik obtained from cubebs 0:40 per cent. of cubebin, Schmidt 2.5 per cent.2 The crystals which are deposited in an alcoholic or ethereal extract of cubebs, consist of cubebin in an impure state. Cubebin is devoid of any remarkable therapeutic action; its composition answers to the formula, C33H34010.

The resin extracted from cubebs consists of an indifferent portion, nearly 3 per cent., and of Cubebic Acid, amounting to about 1 per cent. of the drug. Both are amorphous, and so according to Schmidt, are the salts of cubebic acid. Bernatzik however, found some of them, as that of barium, to be crystallizable. Schulze (1873) prepared cubebic acid from the crystallized sodium-salt, but was unable to get it other than amorphous. The resins, the indifferent as well as the acid, possess the therapeutic properties of the drug.

Schmidt further pointed out the presence in cubebs, of gum (8 per cent.), fatty oil, and malates of magnesium and calcium.

Commerce-Cubebs were imported into Singapore in 1872 to the extent of 3062 cwt., of which amount 2348 cwt. were entered as from Netherlands India. The drug was re-shipped during the same year to the amount of 2766 cwt., the quantity exported to the United Kingdom being 1180 cwt., to the United States of America 1244 cwt., and to British India 104 cwt. In the previous year, a larger quantity was shipped to India than to Great Britain.

Uses-Cubebs are much employed in the treatment of gonorrhoea. The drug is usually administered in powder; less frequently in the form of ethereal or alcoholic extract, or essential oil.

Bernatzik and Schmidt, whose chemical and therapeutical experiments have thrown much light on the subject, have shown that the efficacy of cubebs being dependent on the indifferent resin and cubebic acid, preparations which contain the utmost amount of these bodies and exclude other constituents of the drug, are to be preferred. They would reject the essential oil, as they find its administration devoid of therapeutic effects.

The preparations which consequently are to be recommended, are the berries deprived of their essential oil and constituents soluble in water, and then dried and powdered; an alcoholic extract prepared from the same, or the purified resins.

Adulteration-Cubebs are not much subject to adulteration, though it is by no means rare that the imported drug contains an undue proportion of the inert stalks (rachis) that require to be picked out before the berries are ground. Dealers judge of cubebs by the oiliness and strong characteristic smell of the berries when crushed. Those which

1 Bernatzik, in Canstatt's Fahresbericht über die Fortschritte in der Pharmacie, xiv. (1866) i. 15.

2 Wiggers and Husemann, Jahresbericht, 1870. 52.

3 Straits Settlements Blue Book for 1872. 294. 338.-There are no statistics for showing the total import of cubebs into the United Kingdom.

4

They yielded to Schmidt 17 per cent. of oil and 3 per cent. of resin.

M M

have a large proportion of the pale, smooth, ripe berries, which look dry when broken, are to be avoided.

We have occasionally found in the commercial drug a small, smooth, two-celled fruit, of the size, shape, and colour of cubebs, but wanting the long pedicel. A slight examination suffices to recognize it as not being cubebs. We have also met with some cubebs of larger size than the ordinary sort, much shrivelled, with a stouter and flattened pedicel, one and a half times to twice as long as the berry. The drug has an agreeable odour different from that of common cubebs, and a very bitter taste. From a comparison with herbarium specimens, we judge that it may possibly be derived from Piper crassipes Korthals (Cubeba crassipes Miq.), a Sumatran species.

The fruits of Piper Lowong Bl. (Cubeba Lowong Miq.), a native of Java, and those of P. ribesioides Wall. (Cubeba Wallichii Miq.) are extremely cubeb-like. Those of Piper caninum A. Dietr. (Cubeba canina Miq.), a plant of wide distribution throughout the Malay Archipelago, for a specimen of which we have to thank Mr. Binnendyk of Buitenzorg, are smaller than true cubebs, and have stalks only half the diameter of the berry.

In the south of China, the fruits of Laurus Cubeba Lour. have been frequently mistaken by Europeans for cubebs. The tree which affords them is unknown to modern botanists; Meissner refers it doubtfully to the genus Tetranthera.1

African Cubebs or West African Black Pepper.

This spice is the fruit of Piper Clusii Cas. DC. (Cubeba Clusii Miq.); it is a round berry having a general resemblance to common cubebs but somewhat smaller, less rugose, attenuated into a slender pedicel once or twice as long as the berry and usually curved. The berries are crowded around a common stalk or rachis; they are of an ashy grey tint, and have a hot taste and the odour of pepper. According to Stenhouse, they contain piperin and not cubebin.2

The fruit of Piper Clusii was known as early as 1364 to the merchants of Rouen and Dieppe, who imported it from the Grain Coast, now Liberia, under the name of pepper. The Portuguese likewise exported it from Benin as far back as 1485, as Pimienta de rabo, ie. tailed pepper, and attempted in vain to sell it in Flanders. Clusius received from London a specimen of this drug, of which he has left a good figure in his Exotica. He says that its importation was forbidden by the King of Portugul for fear it should depreciate the pepper of India. The spice was also known to Gerarde and Parkinson; in our times it has been afresh brought to notice by the late Dr. Daniell. tropical Western Africa, it is used as a condiment.7

1 De Candolle, Prod. xv. sect. i. 199; Hanbury in Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 205, with figure.

2 Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 363.

3 Margry, Les navigations françaises et la révolution maritime du XIVe au XVIe siècle, 1867. 26.

In

4 Giovanni di Barros, l'Asia, i. (Venet. 1561) 80.

5 Lib. i. c. 22. p. 184.

6 Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 198.

7 One cask of it was offered for sale in London as "Cubebs," 11 Feb. 1858.

HERBA MATICO.

Matico.

Botanical Origin-Piper angustifolium Ruiz et Pavon (Artanthe elongata Miq.) a shrub growing in the moist woods of Bolivia, Peru, 'Brazil, New Granada and Venezuela, also cultivated in some localities. A slightly different, somewhat stouter form of the plant with leaves 7 to 8 inches long (var. a. cordulatum Cas. DC.), occurs in the Brazilian provinces of Bahia, Minas Geraes and Ceará, as well as in Peru and the northern parts of South America.

History The styptic properties of this plant are said to have been discovered by a Spanish soldier named Matico, who having applied some of the leaves to his wounds, observed that the bleeding was thereby arrested; hence the plant came to be called Yerba or Palo del Soldado (soldier's herb or tree). The story is not very probable, but it is current in many parts of South America, and its allusion is not confined to the plant under notice.

The hæmostatic powers of matico, which are not noticed in the works of Ruiz and Pavon, were first recognized in Europe by Jeffreys, a physician of Liverpool, in 1839, but they had already attracted attention in North America as early as 1827.

Description-Matico, as it arrives in commerce, consists of a compressed, coherent, brittle mass of leaves and stems, of a light green hue and pleasant herby odour. More closely examined, it is seen to be made up of jointed stems bearing lanceolate, acuminate leaves, cordate and unequal at the base, and having very short stalks. The leaves are rather thick, with their whole upper surface traversed by a system of minute sunk veins, which divide it into squares and give it a tessellated appearance. On the under side, these squares form a corresponding series of depressions which are clothed with shaggy hairs. The leaves attain a length of about 6 inches by 11 inches broad. The flower and fruit spikes which are often 4 to 5 inches long, are slender and cylindrical with the flowers or fruits densely packed. The leaves of matico have a bitterish aromatic taste.

3

Chemical Composition-The leaves yield a small amount of essential oil, which we find slightly dextrogyre; a large proportion of it distills at 180° to 200° C., the remainder becoming thickish. Both portions are lighter than water; but another specimen of the oil of matico which we had kept for some years, sinks in water. We have observed that in winter the oil deposits remarkable crystals of a camphor, more than half an inch in length, fusible at 103° C.

Matico further affords, according to Marcotte (1864), a crystallizable acid, named Artanthic Acid, besides some tannin. The latter is made evident by the dark brown colour which the infusion assumes on addition of ferric chloride. The leaves likewise contain resin, but as shown by Stell in 1858, neither piperin, cubebin, nor any analogous principle such as the so-called Maticin formerly supposed to exist in them.

1 Matico is the diminutive of Mateo, the Spanish for Matthew.

2 Remarks on the efficacy of Matico as a styptic and astringent, 3rd ed., Lond. 1845.

3 Deviating only 0.7° in a column 50 mm. long 4 Guibourt (et Planchon), Drogues, ii. (1869) 278.

Hist. des

་

M M 2

Commerce-The drug is imported in bales and serons by way of

Panama.

Uses-Matico leaves previously softened in water, or in a state of powder, are sometimes employed to arrest the bleeding of a wound. The infusion is taken for the cure of internal hæmorrhage.

Substitutes-Several plants have at times been brought into the market under the name of matico. One of these is Piper aduncum L. (Artanthe adunca Miq.), of which a quantity was imported into London from Central America in 1863, and first recognized by Bentley.1 In colour, odour, and shape of leaf it nearly agrees with ordinary matico; but differs in that the leaves are marked beneath by much more prominent ascending parallel nerves, the spaces between which are not rugose but comparatively smooth and nearly glabrous. In chemical characters, the leaves of P. aduncum appear to accord with those of P. angustifolium.

Piper aduncum is a plant of wide distribution throughout Tropical America. Under the name of Nhandi or Piper longum, it was mentioned by Piso in 16482 on account of the stimulant action of its leaves and root, a property which causes it to be still used in Brazil, where however, no particular styptic virtues seem to be ascribed to it. The fruits are there employed in the place of cubebs.

3

According to Triana, Piper lanceafolium HBK. (Artanthe Miq.) and another species not recognized, yield matico in New Granada.* Waltheria glomerata Presl (Sterculiacea) is called Palo del Soldado at Panama and its leaves are used as a vulnerary.5

ARISTOLOCHIACEÆ.

RADIX SERPENTARIÆ.

Radix Serpentaria Virginiana; Virginian Snake-root, Serpentary Root; F. Serpentaire de Virginie; G. Schlangenwurzel.

Botanical Origin-Aristolochia Serpentaria L., a perennial herb, commonly under a foot high, with simple or slightly branched, flexuose stems, producing small, solitary, dull purple flowers, close to the ground. It grows in shady woods in the United States, from Missouri and Indiana to Florida and Virginia,-abundantly in the Alleghanies and in the Cumberland Mountains, less frequently in New York, Michigan and the other Northern States. The plant varies exceedingly in the shape of its leaves.

History The earliest account of Virginian snake-root is that of Thomas Johnson, an apothecary of London who published an edition of Gerarde's Herbal in 1636. It is evident however that Johnson confounded a species of Aristolochia from Crete, with what he calls "that