Juniper

Juniper: what was it used for?

The berries to provoke urine and warm the stomach; the wood and berries burnt against plague and foul air.

Juniper: what does modern science say?

A diuretic and carminative; its oil irritates the kidneys in excess. Genever and gin take their name and flavor from it.

Juniper: what did the older authorities say?

Pliny

“The juniper is of a warming and resolvent nature beyond all other plants.” Of its two species “the odour of either, burnt, repels the approach of serpents.” The seed “is good for pains in the stomach, chest, and sides; it dispels flatulency and sudden chills, soothes cough,” and the berries “taken in red wine, act astringently upon the bowels.” It is diuretic, enters aperient antidotes, and is prescribed for convulsions, griping pains and sciatica “either in a dose of four berries in white wine, or in the form of a decoction of twenty berries in wine.” Some, he adds, “rub the body with juniper berries as a preventive of the attacks of serpents.”

Culpeper

“This admirable solar shrub is scarce to be paralleled for its virtues”: the berries, hot in the third degree, are “a most admirable counter-poison, and as great a resister of the pestilence, as any growing,” and provoke urine exceedingly; country people who cannot draw the chemical oil may eat ten or a dozen ripe berries every morning fasting; the ashes of the wood rubbed on the gums for scurvy.