[92] ‘Practical Hygiene.’
Uses, &c. Black pepper is a powerful stimulant, carminative, and rubefacient. Its use in moderation, as a condiment, is peculiarly serviceable to persons who are of cold habit, or who suffer from weak digestion; but in inflammatory habits, and in affections of the mucous membranes, it is generally highly injurious. As a medicine it is often serviceable in nausea, vomiting, chronic diarrhœa, and agues. In North America a common remedy for the last is 1⁄2 oz. of ground pepper stirred up with a glassful of warm beer; or a like quantity made into a tincture by steeping it in 5 or 6 times its weight of gin, rum, or whisky, for a few days.
Prepared black pepper is made by steeping the berries for 3 days in 3 times their weight of vinegar, and then drying and grinding them. It is milder than common pepper. See Confections, Piperine, &c.
Pepper, Cayenne. Syn. Bird pepper, Chili p., Guinea p., Indian p., Red p.; Piper capsici, P. cayenne, L. This is prepared from chillies, or the pods of Capsicum frutescens, or from Capsicum baccatum, or bird pepper, but generally from the first, on account of its greater pungency and acrimony; and, occasionally, from Capsicum annuum or medicinal capsicum.
Prep. 1. From the dried pods (powdered), 1 lb.; and wheaten bread or captain’s biscuits (heated until they are perfectly dry and brittle, and begin to acquire a yellow colour throughout, and then powdered), 7 lbs.; mixed and ground together. Colouring matter and common salt are frequently added, but are unnecessary.
2. As the last, but making the mixture into a dough with water, then forming it into small cakes, drying these as rapidly as possible at a gentle heat, and then grinding them.
3. (Loudon.) The ripe pods, dried in the sun, are stratified with wheaten flour in a dish or tray, and exposed in a stove-room or a half-cold oven until they are quite dry; they are then removed from the flour, and ground to fine powder; to every oz. of this powder 1 lb. (say 15 oz.) of wheaten flour (including that already used) are added, and the mixture is made into a dough with a little tepid water and a teaspoonful of yeast; after fermentation is well set up, the dough is cut into small pieces, and baked in a slow oven until it is
perfectly hard and brittle; it is then beaten or ground to powder, and forms ‘cayenne pepper.’
Pure cayenne pepper, when burnt, leaves a scarcely perceptible quantity of white ash; a red-coloured ash indicates the presence of red ochre, brick-dust, Armenian bole, or other earthy colouring matter. If red lead is present, it will be left behind under the form of a dark-coloured powder, or a small metallic globule.
Pur. The ‘cayenne pepper’ of the shops is often a spurious article, made by grinding a mixture of any of the reddish woods or sawdust with enough red pods or chillies to render the mixture sufficiently acrid and pungent. Common salt, colcothar, red bole, brick-dust, vermilion, and even red lead, are also common additions.