Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Grains of Paradise
GRAINS OF PARADISE, Guinea Grains, or Melegueta Pepper (German, Paradieskörner; French, Graines de Paradis, Maniguette), the semina cardamomi majoris or piper melegueta of pharmaceutists, are the seeds of Amomum Melegueta, Roscoe, a reed-like plant of the natural order Zingiberaceæ, which is a native of tropical western Africa, and of Princes and St Thomas's Islands in the Gulf of Guinea, is cultivated in British Guiana, and may with ease be grown in hot-houses in England. The plant has a branched horizontal rhizome; smooth, nearly sessile, alternate leaves, with the blade oblong-lanceolate; large, white, pale pink, or purplish flowers; and an ovate-oblong fruit, ensheathed in bracts, which is of a scarlet colour when fresh, and reaches under cultivation a length of 5 inches. The seeds are contained in the acid pulp of the fruit, are commonly wedge-shaped and bluntly angular, are about 1 line in diameter, and have a glossy dark-brown husk, with a conical light-coloured membranous caruncle at the base, and a white kernel. They contain, according to Flückiger and Hanbury, 0·3 per cent. of a faintly yellowish neutral essential oil, having an aromatic, not acid taste, and a specific gravity at 15·5° C. of 0·825, and giving on analysis the formula C₂₀H₃₂O, or C₁₀H₁₆ + C₁₀H₁₆O; also 5·83 per cent. of an intensely pungent, viscid, brown resin. Grains of paradise were formerly officinal in British pharmacopœias, and in the 13th and succeeding centuries were used as a drug and a spice, the wine known as hippocras being flavoured with them and with ginger and cinnamon. In 1629 they were employed among the ingredients of the twenty-four herring pies which were the ancient fee-favour of the city of Norwich, ordained to be carried to court by the lord of the manor of Carleton (Johnston and Church, Chem. of Common Life, p. 355, 1879). Grains of paradise were in past times brought overland from West Africa to the Mediterranean ports of the Barbary States, to be shipped for Italy. They are now exported almost exclusively from the Gold Coast. The amount received by Great Britain in 1871 was upwards of 760 cwts. Grains of paradise are to some extent used in veterinary practice, but for the most part illegally to give a fictitious strength to malt liquors, gin, and cordials. By 56 Geo. III. c. 58, no brewer or dealer in beer shall have in his possession or use grains of paradise, under a penalty of £200 for each offence; and no druggist shall sell the same to a brewer under a penalty of £500. They are, however, devoid of any injurious physiological action, and are much esteemed as a spice by the natives of Guinea.
See Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, part 30, tab. 268; Lanessan, Hist. des Drogues, pp. 456–460, 1878.