Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medical and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bentley and Theophilus Redwood ; with an appendix.

Jonathan Pereira

Date:: 1874

Credit: Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medical and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bentley and Theophilus Redwood ; with an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

1100/1180 (page 1068)

$[1068] leaves of Cliavica (Piper) Beth, the Betel Pepper, and Chavica Siraboa, these nuts form the celebrated masticatory of the East called betel. They are usually cut into four equal parts, one of which is rolled up with a little lime in the leaf of the Betel Pepper, and the whole chewed. The mixture acts as a sialogogue and tinges the saliva red. Betel as thus prepared is considered to impart an ornamental red hue to the lips and mouth, and an agreeable odour to the breath, and is also supposed to possess stimulant, astringent, and narcotic properties. The Indians believe that by its use the teeth are fastened, the gums cleansed, and the mouth cooled. Peron was convinced that he preserved his health during a long and difficult voyage by the habitual use of betel, while his com- panions, who did not use it, died mostly of dysentery. The effects of betel seem to be as much due to the other ingredients as to the areca nut. So addicted are the natives to the use of betel that Blume states 'that they would rather forego meat and drink than their favourite areca nuts.' In this country areca met charcoal is used as a tooth-powder. In reference to this, Pereira says, ' I know of no particular value it can have over ordinary charcoal, except, perhaps, that derived from its greater hardness.' In the southern parts of India, and probably in Ceylon, an extract called catechu is procured from areca nuts. The mode of preparing it has been described by Herbert de Jager and Dr. Heyne. The last-mentioned author states that it is largely procured in Mysore, about Sirah, in the following manner:— ' Areca nuts are taken as they come from the tree, and boiled for some hours in an iron vessel. They are then taken out and the remaining water is inspissated by continued boiling. This process furnishes Kassu, or most astringent terra japonica, which is black, and mixed with paddy husks and other impurities. After the nuts are dried, they are put into a fresh quantity of water, boiled again, and this water being inspissated, like the former, yields the best or dearest kind of catechu, called Goury. It is yellowish-brown, has an earthy fracture, and is free from the admixture of foreign bodies.' None of the extracts brought from India under the denomina- tion of catechu are distinguished by any name by which they can be referred to the areca nut. It is probable, however, that some of them which come over in the form of round and flat cakes, and also in balls, and which are more or less covered with paddy husks, are obtained from this seed. It is also probable that the Colombo or Ceylon catechu of commerce, in the form of round flat cakes, covered by paddy husks, is the Kassu of Heyne ; and Professor Guibourt is of opinion that the dull reddish catechu in balls partially covered by paddy husks is the Coury of Heyne. In its properties and uses$

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