Allspice

Pimento officinalis

Synonyms: pimento, Jamaica pepper

Part used: fruit, particularly the shell

Habitat: Pimento, familiarly called Allspice, because it tastes like a combination of cloves, juniper berries, cinnamon and pepper, is the dried full-grown but immature fruit of the Pimento officinalis or Eugenia Pimenta. It is an evergreen tree growing approximatly 30 feet high in the West Indian islands and South America.

Medicinal use: Allspice was formerly official in both the British and United States Pharmacopoeias. Pimento Oil was dropped from the British in 1914, but Pimento Water is still listed in the British Pharmacopoeia Codex. It was also dropped from the U.S. Pharmocopoeia but admitted to the National Formulary IV.

Pimento (or allspice) is one of the ingredients in the Compound Tinture of Guaic found in that formulary. The Essential Oil, as well as the Spirit and the distilled Water of Pimento are useful for flatulent indigestion. Two or three drops of the oil on sugar are given to correct flatulence (gas). The oil is also given on sugar and in pills to correct the griping tendancies of purgatives.

Preperations: powdered fruit: dose 10 to 30 grains