Juniper berries when crushed have an aromatic odour, and a spicy, sweetish, terebinthinous taste.
Microscopic Structure—The outer layer of the fruit consists of a colourless transparent cuticle, which covers a few rows of large cubic or tabular cells having thick, brown, porous walls. These cells contain a dark granular substance and masses of resin. The sarcocarp, which in the ripe state consists of large, elliptic, thin-walled, loosely coherent cells, contains chlorophyll, drops of essential oil, and a crystalline substance soluble in alcohol,—no doubt a stearoptene. Before maturity it likewise contains starch granules and large oil-cells. This tissue is traversed by very small vascular bundles containing annulated and dotted vessels.
Chemical Composition—The most important constituent of juniper berries is the volatile oil, obtainable to the extent of 0·4 to 1·2 per cent. The latter amount is obtained from Hungarian, 0·7 per cent. from German fruits.[2323] It is a mixture of levogyre oils, the one of which having the composition C₁₀H₁₆ boils at 155° C.; the prevailing portion of the oil, boiling at about 200°, consists of hydrocarbons, which are polymeric with terpene, C₁₀H₁₆. The crude oil as distilled by us deviated 3°·5 to the left in a column of 50 mm.
By passing nitrosyl chloride gas, NOCl, into it, Tilden (1877) obtained from the portion boiling below 160° the crystallized compound C₁₀H₁₆(NOCl), which is yielded by all the terpenes.
Another important constituent of juniper berries is the glucose, of which Trommsdorff (1822) obtained 33 per cent., while Donath (1873) found 41·9, and Ritthausen (1877) not more than 16 per cent. in the berries deprived of water. Of albuminoid substances about 5 per cent. are present, of inorganic matters 3 to 4 per cent. The fruit, moreover, contains also according to Donath small amounts of formic, acetic, and malic acids, besides resin.
Collection and Commerce—Juniper berries are largely collected in Savoy, and in the departments of the Doubs and Jura in France, whence they find their way to the hands of the Geneva druggists. They are also gathered in Austria, the South of France and Italy. In Hamburg price-currents they are quoted as German and Italian. The largest supplies are apparently furnished by Hungaria.
Uses—The berries and the essential oil obtained from them are reputed diuretic, yet are not often prescribed in English medicine.
HERBA SABINÆ.
Cacumina vel Summitates Sabinæ; Savin or Savine; F. Sabine; G. Sevenkraut.
Botanical Origin—Juniperus Sabina L., a woody evergreen shrub, usually of small size and low-growing, spreading habit, but in some localities erect and arborescent.