Betel

a pepper-like plant of the East Indies. The betel leaf and the betel nut are from entirely different plants. The betel nut is the nutlet or seed of the betel palm. The fruit is somewhat smaller than a hen's egg. The nuts are gathered before they are quite ripe. They are boiled, cut into slices, and dried, when they assume a mottled brown appearance. The betel nut gets its name from its use with the leaves of the betel. The natives pluck a green betel leaf, smear its surface with a quicklime made from shells, scrape in some fragments of a betel nut, and make a quid which is chewed like tobacco. Chewing causes a flow of saliva which, with the juice of the betel, blackens the teeth and stains the mouth and lips and gums to a repulsive brick red, almost intolerable. Some say betel chewing destroys the teeth at twenty-five, others that it preserves them, sweetens the breath, aids digestion, and gives color to the blood. One authority suggests that betel supplies a valuable tonic needed by people who are rice eaters, and who have no meat. The betel habit is confined chiefly to the Malay race. Much has been written on this disgusting habit of betel chewing as practiced by both sexes of one-tenth of the human race, but betel cannot be so radically different from tobacco as to warrant a tobacco-using people in passing severe criticism on the betel habit of a people less advanced in civilization. See Tobacco