This section is from the book "The London Medical Dictionary", by Bartholomew Parr. Also available from Amazon: London Medical Dictionary.
(From the Arabic term cubabah). Cu-bebs; called also piper caudatum; by Actuarius, com-fieba; and by Myrepsus, compiper. Piper cubeba Lin. Sup. 90. Wildenow, vol. i. p. 159. The cubeb tree is also the baccifera arbor Brasiliensis fructu piper reci-fiiente. The berries are dried, of an ash brown colour, generally wrinkled, greatly resembling pepper, but furnished each with a slender stalk. They are brought from Java, and different parts of the East Indies; are a warm spice, agreeable to the smell, and somewhat pungent to the taste. Their qualities resemble those of pepper, but are much milder. Distilled with water, they yield a small quantity of essential oil, which possesses most of their virtue. An extract made with rectified spirit of wine abounds with all their virtues, for the odorous principle does not exhale with spirit.
Those which are large, plump, and heavy, are preferable; for if they are wrinkled, they have been gathered before they were ripe. See Raii Hist.; Neumann's Works; and Lewis's Materiamedica.
 
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