Spec. Plant Willd. i. 1050.

Cl. 5. Ord. 1. Pentandria Monogynia. Nat. Ord. Solaneae, Juss.

G. 334. Corolla wheel-shaped. Berry without juice.

Sp. 1. C. annuum. Annual Capsicum.3 Med. Bot. 2d ed. 226. t. 80.

1 Ford On Diseases of the Hip-joint, 53.

2 In America, Cantharis cinerea, C. vittala, C. marginata, and C. atrata have been used instead of common Cantharides. They raise a blister as speedily, and are said not to occasion strangury.

3 Sprengel, in his History of Botany, vmder the head "Plinius," says, "Capsicum annuum sine dubio est ea Piperitis, quam et Siliquastrum vocat.-(20. 17.)"

Officinal. Capsicum, Lond. Capsici Annui Fructus, Edin.

Capsici Annui Capsulae cum Seminibus. Dub. Capsicum, or Cayenne Pepper.

Sun. Poivre d'Inde (F.), Spanisdier oderturkircher pfeffer (G.), Iaarlykse Spaansche peper(Ditch), Baelg-peber (Dan.), Spansk peppar (Swed.), Pieprzyea (Pol.), Pepperone (I.), Pimienta de Indias (S.), Pimentao da India (Port.), L'ul Mirch (H), Brahn Maricha (San.), Mollaghai (Tarn.), Filfil surkh (Pers.), Felfel (Arab.), Lornbak (Jav.), Chabai (Malay).

This is an annual plant, a native of both the Indies, and cultivated all over Europe. It flowers in June or July, and the fruit is ripe in October. The stem is herbaceous, roundish, smooth, crooked, branching, and rising two or three feet in height. The leaves are ovate, smooth, entire, placed on long foot-stalks in an irregular order. The flowers are peduncled axillary, solitary, and white: the calyx is persistent, tubular, and divided at the edge into five short segments; the corolla wheel-shaped, five-cleft, the segments pointed and plaited : the filaments are short, tapering with oblong anthers; and the germen is ovate, supporting a slender style, which is longer than the filaments, and terminated by a blunt stigma. The fruit is a long, conical, pendulous, pod-like berry, of a shining, orange-scarlet, or sometimes yellow colour, two-celled, and containing a dry spongy pulp with several flat, kidney-shaped seeds.

Many varieties of this species of Capsicum enter into the composition of Cayenne pepper; but, certainly, the best which is brought home from the West Indies, ready prepared, is made from the Capsicum baccatum (Bird pepper), or the Capsicum frutescens. Cayenne pepper is often mixed with muriate of soda; and, sometimes, with a less innocent substance, the red oxide of lead. This fraud may be discovered by boiling some of the suspected pepper in vinegar, and, after filtering the decoction, adding to it a solution of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, which will throw down a black precipitate : or sulphate of soda may be used; in which case, if the pepper contain oxide of lead, a white precipitate will be produced, which, after being dried, and exposed to heat mixed with a little charcoal, will afford a globule of lead.

Qualities. - Capsicum berries have a red colour, an aromatic odour, which is somewhat impaired by drying; and an aromatic, extremely pungent, acrimonious taste, setting the mouth, as it were, on fire, and the impression remaining long on the palate. These sensible qualities are imparted to water, alcohol, and ether. Half a drachm of the powder infused in f jss. of boiling water lost grs. xij. The infusion is precipitated by infusion of galls, and alcohol dissolves the precipitate. It is also precipitated by nitrate of silver, bichloride of mercury, acetate of lead, the sulphates of iron, zinc, and copper, the alkaline carbonates, and alum : but it is not altered by the mineral acids, the solution of potassa, nor by silicized potassa. The ethereal tincture, when evaporated on the surface of water, leaves an orange-coloured resin, in which the pungency of the capsicum is concentrated. These experiments point out the substances which are incompatible in formula with infusions of capsicum; and have led to the conclusion that it contains chiefly cinchonia, resin, vegetable mucus, an acrid principle, in which the acrimony resides, and a fixed oil.1 Braconnot acted upon the capsicum, freed from seeds, with strong alcohol: on evaporating the tincture, a coloured wax first separated, and, secondly, an extract by evaporating the residuary fluid.

On treating this extract with ether he procured a soft reddish-brown oleo-resin, which possesses in an eminent degree the properties of the capsicum : this he calls Capsicin. It exists in the proportion of 1.9 per cent. of the pods: it is scarcely soluble in water or in vinegar, but very soluble in ether, alcohol, the volatile oils, and liquor potassae. Besides this, Braconnot procured pectic acid, an azotized matter, gum, and a colouring matter from capsicum.

Medical properties and uses. - The fruit of the capsicum, or Cayenne pepper, is a powerful stimulant, unaccompanied with any narcotic property. As a condiment it is generally used both in tropical and temperate climates; and it appears to have been used as such by the Romans.2 It has been successfully given in atonic gout, in dyspepsia, when accompanied with much flatulence; in tympanitis, and paralysis. In dropsies, and other cachectic complaints, when chalybeates are indicated, a small portion of powdered capsicum is recommended as an excellent addition by Dr. Wright; and Bergius says, that he used it with success in obstinate inter-mittents.3 I have had sufficient experience of its efficacy as an adjunct to cinchona bark in intermittents; and also in lethargic affections4; but the diseases in which capsicum has been found most useful are cynanche maligna, and scarlatina maligna, in which it is administered internally and used as a gargle. Its sensible effects are heat in the stomach, and a general glow over the body, without much acceleration of the pulse; and, as a gargle, it cleans without impeding the healing of the ulcers of the fauces.

Cataplasms of capsicum operate as powerful rubefacients without blistering the skin, and are used in the West Indies to relieve the coma and delirium which, almost constantly, attend tropical fevers. The diluted juice of the fruit is said to be a sovereign remedy in ophthalmia from relaxation. The powder applied to a relaxed uvula is a most useful stimulant.

1 Journ. de Phisique, 1820, p. 173. -

2 Pliny.

3 Mat. Med. e Regno Veg. i. 44.

4 Dr. Paris says that Rymers Cardiac Tincture is an infusion of capsicum, camphor, cardamom seeds, rhuharb, aloes, and castor, in proof spirit, with a small quantity of sulphuric acid. Pharmacologia.

Capsicum may be given in the form of pills, in doses from grs. v. to grs. x.; or f 3 ss. to f 3 ij. of a tincture made with 3 iv. of capsicum and f viij. of alcohol. The gargle usually employed is made by kneading into a paste 3 j. of Cayenne pepper and Эj. of common salt; then adding f vj. of boiling water; and to the strained solution, f 3 iv. of vinegar. But a simple addition of f 3 ilj. of the tincture to f ; vj. of water, or of infusion of roses, answers equally well.

Officinal preparations. - Tinctura Capsici, L. E. D.