Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/717

Rh   {{ti|1em|{{larger|CUBEBS}} (Arabic, kabábah}, the fruit of species of plants belonging to the genus Ciibeba, natural order Fiperacece. The cubebs of pharmacy are produced by C. officinalis (Piper Cubeba, Linn.), a climbing woody shrub indigenous to South Borneo, Sumatra, Prince of &quot;Wales Island, and Java. It has round, ash-coloured, smooth branches ; oblong, or ovate-oblong, coriaceous, shining leaves, 4 to G/ inches long, and 1^ to 2 inches broad ; and dio3cious flowers. The fruits are small, globose, about ^th inch in diameter, and not so large as white pepper ; their contracted bases or pedicles are between ^ and ^ inch in length ; and from forty fo fifty of them are borne upon a common rachis. Com mercial cubebs consist of the dried ripe berries, usually with their pedicle-s 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 aromatic ; the taste, pungent, acrid, slightly bitterish, and persistent. About 15 per cent, of a volatile oil, poly meric with oil of turpentine, is obtained by distilling cubebs with water ; after rectification with water, or on keeping, this deposits rhombic crystals of camphor of cubebs or hydrate of cubebene, C 30 H 48 ,2H 2 ; ciibebene, the liquid portion, has the formula C 30 H 48. Cubebin is a crystalline substance existing in cubebs, discovered by Soubeiran and Capitain,e in 1839 ; it 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 per cent, of cubebic acid, and to this and to a resin Bernatzik and Schmidt attribute its therapeutic effects. Cubebs are administered for arrest ing excessive mucous urethral discharges, also as a gentle stimulant, carminative, and stomachic. They are most safely employed in gonorrhoea when the inflammation is confined to the mucous membrane of the urethra. The introduction of the drug into medicine is supposed to have been due to the Arabian physicians in the Middle Ages. Cubebs were formerly candied and eaten whole, or used ground as a seasoning for meat. Their modern employment in England as a drug dates from 1815. &quot;Cubebae &quot; were purchased in 1284 and 1285 by Lord Clare at 2s. 3d. and 2.s. 9d. per Ib respectively; and in 1307 1 R&amp;gt; for the King s Wardrobe cost 9s., a sum representing about 3, 12s. in present value (Rogers, Hist, of Agriculture and Prices, i. 627-8 ; ii. 544). The plant Cubeba Chisii produces the African cubebs or West African black-pepper, the berry of which is smoother than that of common cubebs, and usually has a curved pedicle. It is said by Stenhouse (Ann. Ch. P/iarm., xcv. 106) to contain piperin and not cubebin. In the 14th century it was imported into Europe from the Grain Coast, under the name of pepper, by merchants of Ilouen and Lippe.}}  CUBITT, (1788-1855), who attained distinction as a builder and capitalist, was born at Buxton, near Norwich. Few men have exhibited greater self-reliance in early life in the pursuit of a successful career. In his nineteenth, year, when he was working as a journeyman carpenter, his father s death quickened the desire to reach an independent position, and induced him to undertake a voyage to India, as captain s joiner. On his return to London, two years after, in the possession of a small capital, he began business as a carpenter, and the growth of his establishment was steady and rapid. He was one of the first to unite the many trades, until then more or less separate, which are now comprised in a &quot; builder s &quot; busi ness ; and this amalgamation very much increased his success. One of the earlier works which gave him reputa tion was the London Institution, Moorfields; but it is from 1824 that the vast building operations date which identify his name with many splendid ranges of London houses, such as Tavistock, Gordon, Belgrave, and Lowndes Squares, and the district of South Belgravia. While these and similar extensive operations were in progress, a mone tary panic, which proved ruinous to many, was surmounted in his case by a determined spirit and his integrity of character. He took great interest in sanitary measures, and published, for private circulation, a pamphlet on the general drainage of London, the substance of which was afterwards embodied in a letter to the Times ; the plan he advocated was subsequently adopted by the conveyance of the sewage matter some distance below London. He regarded with the eye of a philanthropist the provision of open spaces in the environs of London as places of public recreation, and was one of the originators of Battersea Park, the first of the people s parks. At a late period he received profes sionally the recognition of royalty, the Palace at Osborne being erected after his designs, and under his superinten dence ; and in the Life of the Prince Consort he is de scribed by the Queen as one &quot; than whom a better and kinder man did not exist.&quot; In 1851, although he was not identified with the management of the Great Exhibition, he showed the warmest sympathy with its objects, and aided its projectors in many ways, especially in the profit able investment of their surplus funds. As a capitalist he regarded as inseparable the interests of employers and employed, and he always had the elevation of his work people at heart. He was elected president of the Builders Society some time before his death, which took place at his seat of Denbies, near Dorking, in 1855.  CUBITT, (1785-1861), a distinguished English engiiieer, was born at Dilhatn in Norfolk, where his father was a miller. He received his early education at the village school, and subsequently profited greatly by the access he had to a clergyman s library. While still very young he worked in his father s mill, and served an apprenticeship of four years (1800-1804) as a joiner and cabinetmaker at Stalham. After working for a short time with his father, he became associated with an agricul tural machine-maker, named Cook, who resided at Svvauton. He now showed gr at talent in making accurate and highly finished patterns for the iron castings of horse threshing- machines and other implements. He turned his attention to windmills, which were, at that time, encumbered with sails so large that they proved ex eedingly difficult to manage during a storm. His investigations led him to the invention of self-regulating windmill sails, which were patented in 1807, and are now universally used. In 1812 he entered the important works of Messrs Ransome of Ipswich, of which he soon became chief engineer. He improved the port and gasworks of Ipswich, and ultimately became a partner of the Messrs Ransome, and remained with them till 1 826, when his increasing in terest in great engineering undertakings led to his removal to London. Meanwhile, the subject of the employment, rf criminals had been much in his thoughts ; and the result was his invention of the treadmill, which he meant to be used for grinding corn, pumping water, &c., and did not contemplate as an instrument of punishment. Shortly after 1818 all the principal jails in the kingdom introduced the invention. In 1 822 an account of the treadmill, &quot; invented by Mr William Cubitt of Ipswich,&quot; was issued by the Society for the Promotion of Prison Discipline. Mr Cubitt had been very busy, while in Ipswich, having issued reports in 1814, 1820, and 1822 on the Norwich navigation^ In 1822 he first became intimate with Telford. After his re- moval to London he was almost constantly engaged in im- 