CUBEBS, the fruit of several species of pepper (Piper), fam ily Piperaceae. The cubebs of pharmacy are produced by Piper Cubeba, a climbing woody shrub indigenous to south Borneo, Sumatra, Prince of Wales island, and Java. The cubeb is culti vated in Java and Sumatra, the fruits are gathered before they are ripe, and carefully dried. Commercial cubebs consist of the dried berries, usually with their stalks attached; the pericarp is greyish brown, or blackish and wrinkled; and the seed, when present, is hard, white and oily. The odour of cubebs is agreeable and aro matic; the taste, pungent, acrid, slightly bitter and persistent. About 15% of a volatile oil is obtained by distilling cubebs with water; after rectification with water, or on keeping, this deposits rhombic crystals of camphor of cubebs, ; cubebene, the liquid portion, has the formula C,5H24. Cubebin, [O] : is crystalline and may be prepared from cubebene, or from the pulp left after the distillation of the oil. The drug, along with gum, fatty oils, and malates of magnesium and calcium, contains also about 1 % of cubebic acid, and about 6% of a resin.
The volatile oil—oleum cubebae—is the form in which this drug is most commonly used, the dose being 5 to 20 minims, which may be suspended in mucilage or given after meals in a cachet. The drug has the typical actions of a volatile oil, but exerts some of them in an exceptional degree. Thus it is liable to cause a cutaneous erythema in the course of its excretion by the skin; it has a marked diuretic action; and is an efficient disinfectant of the urinary passages. Cubeb is often used in the form of cigarettes for asthma, chronic pharyngitis and hay-fever and in lozenges for use in bronchitis. It is also given in gonorrhoea, where its antiseptic action is of much value.