Chemical Composition-The most obvious constituent of cubebs. is the volatile oil, the proportion of which yielded by the drug varies from 4 to 13 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 prevailing constituents begin not to boil below 264° C. It is, as shown in 1875 by Oglialoro, a mixture of an oil C10H16, boiling at 158°-163°, which is present to a very small amount, and two oils of the formula CH2, boiling at 262°-265° C. One of the latter deviates the place of polarization strongly to the left, and yields the crystallized compound CH 2 HCl, melting at 118° C. The other hydrocarbon is less lævogyrate and cannot be combined with HCl.

One part of oil of cubebs, diluted with about 20 parts of bisulphide of carbon, assumes at first a greenish, and afterwards a blue coloration, if one drop of a mixture of concentrated sulphuric and nitric acids (equal weight of each acid) is shaken with the solution.

The oil distilled from old cubebs on cooling at length deposits large, transparent, inodorous octohedra of camphor of cubebs, CH + 2 оÌ3, belonging to the rhombic system. They melt at 65° and may be sublimed at 148°. We have not succeeded in obtaining them by keeping the oil of fresh cubebs for two years in contact with water, to which a little alcohol and nitric acid was added.

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 substance, crystallizing in small needles or scales, melting at 125°, having a bitter taste in alcoholic solution; it dissolves freely in boiling alcohol, but is mostly deposited upon cooling; it requires 30 parts of cold ether for solution, and is also abundantly soluble in chloroform. We found this solution to be slightly lævogyre; it turns red on addition of concentrated sulphuric acid. If the solution of cubebin in chloroform is shaken with dry pentoxide of phosphorus, it turns blue and gradually becomes red by the influence of moisture. Cubebin is nearly insoluble in cold, but slightly soluble in hot water. Bernatzik (1866) obtained from cubebs 040 per cent. of cubebin, Schmidt (1870) 2.5 per cent. 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, according to Weidel (1877) answers to the formula CH10O3; by melting it with caustic potash, cubebin is resolved as follows:

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. Bernatzic 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 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 as far as Borneo, 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

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

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

3 Figured in Nees von Esenbeck, Planta medicinales, Düsseldorf, i. (1828), tab. 22. A different figure is given by Miquel, Comment. phytogr. (1839), tab. 3.

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

Ashantee Pepper, African Cubebs, or West African

Black Pepper.

This spice is the fruit of Piper Clusii Cas. DC. (Cubeba Clusii Miq.), a species of wide distribution in tropical Africa, most abundantly occurring in the country of the Niamniam, about 4° to 5° N. lat., and 28° to 29° E. long. Its splendid red fruit bunches are spoken of with admiration by Schweinfurth,2 who states that Piper Clusii is one of the characteristic and most conspicuous plants of those regions. The dried fruit 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.3

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, i.e. 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 Portugal 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." In tropical Western Africa it is used as a condiment, and might easily be collected in large quantities, provided it should prove a good substitute for pepper.

HERBA MATICO.

Matico.

Botanical Origin-Piper angustifolium3 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.

1 De Candolle, Prod. xv. sect. i. 199; Hanbury in Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 205, with figure; also Science Papers, 247.

2 Im Herzen Africas, i. (1874) 507; ii. 399.

3 Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 363. Margry, Les navigations françaises et la révolution maritime du XIVe au XVIe siècle, 1867. 26.

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

Lib. i. c. 22, p. 184 (1605).

Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 198.

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

Fig. in Bentley and Trimen's Med. Plants, part 18 (1877).

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 1 inches broad. The flower and fruit spikes 14 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; their tissue shows numerous cells, filled with essential oil.3

Chemical Composition-The leaves yield on an average 27 per cent. 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; they belong to the hexagonal system, and have the odour and taste of the oil from which they separate.

6

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.

Commerce The drug is imported in bales and serons by way of Panama. Among the exports of the Peruvian port of Arica in 1877, we noticed 195 quintales (19,773 lb) of Matico.

Uses-Matico leaves, previously softened in water, or in a state of

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 Microscopic examination of the leaves, Pocklington, Pharm. Journ. v. (1874)

301.

4 As Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig, kindly informed me.-F. A. F.

5

Deviating only 09.7 in a column 50 mm. long.

6 Guibourt (et Planchon), Hist. des Drogues, ii. (1869) 278.-We are not acquainted with "artanthic acid."

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.1 (Artanthe adunca Miq.), of which a quantity was imported into London from Central America in 1863, and first recognized by Bentley (1864). 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 roots, 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. Sloane's figure of “Piper longum, arbor folio latissimo" also shows Piper aduncum.

According to Triana, Piper lanceafolium HBK. (Artanthe Miq.), and another species not recognized, yield matico in New Granada. Waltheria glomerata Presl (Sterculiaceae) is called Palo del Soldado at Panama and its leaves are used as a vulnerary." In Riobamba and Quito, Eupatorium glutinosum Lamarck, is also called Chusalonga or Matico.7

ARISTOLOCHIACEÆ.

RADIX SERPENTARIÆ.

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

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 botanists of the 16th century, being fond of appellations alluding to the animal kingdom, gave the names of Serpentaria

1 For a good figure, see Jacquin, Icones II. (1781-1793) tab. 210.

2 De Medicina Brasiliensi, lib. 4. c. 57. 3 Langgaard, Diccionario de Medicina domestica e popular, Rio de Janeiro, ii. (1865) 44.

Voyage to Jamaica I. (1707) 135, and tab. 88.

5 Exposition de 1867-Catalogue de M. José Triana, p. 14.

"Seemann, Botany of the Herald, 185257. 85.

7 Bentham, Plantae Hartwegianæ, Lon. 1839. 198.