Piper Nigrum, Dissertatio Medica

In 18th- and 19th-century Europe, it was standard practice for university professors to write their students' dissertations; the student's job was to explicate and defend the thesis.  At the University of Uppsala (Sweden), first Linnaeus and then Thunberg wrote hundreds of these short botanical papers.  

This particular dissertation by Thunberg is focused on the medical properties of black pepper, known in Europe since antiquity as both a flavoring and a traditional medicine.  Native to Southern India and grown throughout tropical Southeastern Asia (Thunberg attributes it to the Moluccas, Malabar, and Java) pepper remains even today the world’s most traded spice.