Extractum Cubebae Fluidum (U. S. P.)—Fluid Extract of Cubeb.

Botanical name: 

Related entry: Cubeba (U. S. P.)—Cubeb

Preparation.—"Cubeb, in No. 60 powder, one thousand grammes (1000 Gm.) [2 lbs. av., 3 ozs., 120 grs.]; alcohol, a sufficient quantity to make one thousand cubic centimeters (1000 Cc.) [33 fl℥, 391♏︎]. Moisten the powder with two hundred cubic centimeters (200 Cc.) [6 fl℥, 366♏︎] of alcohol, and pack it firmly in a cylindrical percolator; then add enough alcohol to saturate the powder and leave a stratum above it. When the liquid begins to drop from the percolator, close the lower orifice, and, having closely covered the percolator, macerate for 48 hours. Then allow the percolation to proceed, gradually adding alcohol, until the cubeb is exhausted. Reserve the first nine hundred cubic centimeters (900 Cc.) [30 fl℥, 208♏︎] of the percolate, and evaporate the remainder to a soft extract; dissolve this in the reserved portion, and add alcohol to make the fluid extract measure one thousand cubic centimeters (1000 Cc.) [33 fl℥, 391♏︎]"—(U. S. P.).

Description, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—This is a translucent, dark or olive-green fluid having the taste and odor of cubeb. It contains the resin and most of the essential oil. Formerly the oleoresin, made by means of ether, according to a process of Prof. Procter (Proc. Amer. Pharm. Assoc., 1859, pp. 272-3), was prepared and sold as fluid extract of cubeb. Fluid extract of cubeb possesses the virtues of cubeb, and may be given in the dose of from 10 to 30 minims, in water, hydro-alcoholic solution, emulsion, or in capsules, and repeated 3 times a day.


King's American Dispensatory, 1898, was written by Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, Phr. M., Ph. D.