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CHAP. 36.—THE JUNIPER: TWENTY-OXE REMEDIES.

The juniper is of a warming and resolvent nature beyond all other plants: in other respects, it resembles the cedar.1 There are two species of this tree, also, one of which is larger2 than the other:3 the odour of either, burnt, repels the ap- proach of serpents.4 The seed5 is good for pains in the stomach, chest, and sides; it dispels flatulency and sudden chills, soothes cough, and brings indurations to a head. Applied topically, it checks the growth of tumours; and the berries, taken in red wine, act astringently upon the bowels: they are applied also to tumours of the abdomen. The seed is used as an ingredient in antidotes of an aperient nature, and is diuretic6 in its effects. It is used as a liniment for defluxions of the eyes, and is prescribed for convulsions, ruptures, griping pains in the bowels, affections of the uterus, and sciatica, either in a dose of four berries in white wine, or in the form of a decoction of twenty berries in wine.

There are persons who rub the body with juniper berries as a preventive of the attacks of serpents.

1 This so-called cedar, Fée says, is in reality itself a juniper. The medicinal properties of all the varieties of the juniper are not identical. The essential oil of the leaves acts with a formidable energy upon the human system.

2 This is identified by Fée with the Juniperus communis of Lamarck, variety a, the Juniperus communis of Linnæus.

3 Identified by Fée with the Juniperus nana of Willdenow, the Juniperus communis of Lamarck, variety β. The Spanish juniper, mentioned in B. xvi. c. 76, he identifies with the Juniperus thurifera of Linnæus.

4 Virgil says this of the fumes of the cedar, Georg. III. 414; an additional proof, Fée says, that under the name of "cedrus," the juniper was really meant. The smoke of the juniper is not known to have the effect upon serpents here described.

5 The berries of the juniper contain sugar, mucilage, and a small proportion of essential oil; a rob is prepared from them, Fée says, under the name of "extract of juniper."

6 It is a well-known fact, that juniper berries are diuretic; they impart also to the urine the odour of the violet, a property which is equally possessed by turpentine. All the other properties here attributed to the juniper, are, in Fée 's opinion, either hypothetical or absurd.

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