BETEL, or BETLE (Sp., Portng., from Tamil retlilci, betel; literally, a mere leaf), or PAWN. A narcotic stimulant, much used in the East, and particularly by all the tribes of the Malay race. It consists of a leaf of one or other of certain species of pepper, to which, the name of betel-pepper is indiscriminately applied, pineked green, spread over with moistened quick lime (chanane ), generally procured by calcination of shells, and wrapped around a few scrapings of the areea-nut (see AnEea), sometimes called the betel•nut. and also known as pinang. This is put into the mouth and chewed. it causes giddiness in persons unaccustomed to it. excori ates the mouth, and deadens for a time the sense of taste. It is so burning that Europeans do not readily become habituated to it, hut its consumption in the East. Indies is prodigious. Men and women, young and old, indulge in it from morning to night. The use of it is so general as to have become a matter of etiquette: the Malays rarely go out without their Ist(1 boxes, which they present to one another as Europeans did, at one time, their snuff-boxes. The chewing of betel is a practice of great antiquity, and can certainly be traced back to at least the Fifth Century B.C. It gives a red color to the saliva, so that the lips and teeth appear covered with blood; the lips and teeth are also blackened by its habitual use, and the teeth are destroyed, so that men of twenty-five years of are often quite toothless. Whether the use of betel is to be regarded as having any advantages except the mere pleasure afforded to those who have acquired the habit of it, to coun terbalance its obvious disadvantages, is a ques tion upon which difference of opinion exists. Some have represented it as beneficially pro moting the secretion of saliva, strengthening the digestive powers, and warding off attacks of fever; while others pronounce against it an unqualified condemnation. Sir James Emerson
Tennent, in his valuable and interesting work on Ceylon, expresses the opinion that it is ad vantageous to a people of whose ordinary food flesh forms no part, and that it is at once the antacid. the tonic, and the carminative which they require.
The name betel is often given to the species of pepper of which the leaves are ordinarily chewed in the manner just described, which are also called Betel-Pepper or Pawn. Some of them are very extensively cultivated, particu larly Chavica bear, Chaviea sire boa, and Charica male mini, climbing shrubs with leathery leaves, which are heart-shaped in the first and second of these species, and ohlong in the third. They are trained to poles, trellises, or the stems of palms, and require much heat with moisture and shade; upon which account, in the north of India, where the climate would not otherwise be suitable, they are cultivated with great attention in low sheds, poles being placed for their support. at a few feet apart. The genus Chavica is one of those into which the old genus Piper (see PEPPER) has been divided. The requi site qualities of betel are probably found in the leaves of numerous species not only of this but of other genera of the same family. The leaf of the ava (q.v.) is sometimes used.
BETH, (]deb., house). A word frequently introduced as an element in the name of places, as Beth-el house of God; Beth Aven, house of iniquity; Beth-seda, house of mercy. etc. The corresponding word in Arabic, which is similarly used, is Bcit (q.v.).