Black Pepper Oil
(Piper nigrum)
Description A perennial woody vine up to 5m (16ft) high with heart-shaped leaves and small white flowers. The berries turn from red to black as they mature black pepper is the dried, fully grown, unripe fruit.
Ethenomedicinal Practice Both black and white pepper have been used in the East for over 4,000 years for medicinal and culinary purposes. In Chinese medicine, white pepper is used to treat malaria, cholera, dysentery, diarrhoea, stomach-ache and other digestive problems. In Greece it is used for intermittent fever and to fortify the stomach. The mendicant monks of India who cover daily considerable distances on foot, swallow 7 - 9 grains of pepper a day. This gives them remarkable endurance.
Extraction Essential oil by steam distillation from the black peppercorns, dried and crushed. ('Light' and 'heavy' oils are produced by the extraction of the low or high boiling fractions respectively). An oleoresin is also produced by solvent extraction, mainly for flavour use.
Characteristics and Constituents A water - white to pale olive mobile liquid with a fresh, dry-woody, warm, spicy scent. It blends well with frankincense, sandalwood, lavender, rosemary, marjoram, spices and florals (in minute quantities).
Mainly monoterpenes (70 - 80%): thujene, pinene, camphene, sabinene, careen, myrcene, limonene, phellandrene; and sesquiterpenes (20 - 30%) and oxygenated compounds.
Mainly piperene, which is identical in composition to morphia, volatile oil, a resin called Chavicin.
Actions and Uses Analgesic, antimicrobial, antiseptic, antispasmodic, antitoxic, aperitif, aphrodisiac, bactericidal, carminative, diaphoretic, digestive, diuretic, febrifuge, laxative, rubefacient, stimulant (nervous circulatory, digestive), stomachic, tonic.
Used in certain tonic and rubefacient preparations. Used for unusual effects in perfumery work; for example, with rose or carnation in oriental or floral fragrances. The oil and oleoresin are used extensively in the food industry, as well as in the food industry, as well as in alcoholic drinks.
Aromatic, stimulant, carminative is set to possess febrifuge properties. It will correct flatulence and nausea. It has also been used in vertigo, paralytic and arthritic disorders. Used to overcome obstinate constipation of dyspeptics.
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