JUNIPERUS SABINA. -COMMON SAVIN. 
Class XXII. DICECIA. Order XI I . M O N AD E L PH I A. 
Natural Order, CONIFERCE.— THE FIR TRIBE. 
This shrub rises but a few feet in height ; it is covered with a reddish-brown bark, and sends off many 
branches, which are numerously sub-divided ; the leaves are numerous, small, erect, opposite, firm, and 
wholly invest the younger branches, which they terminate in sharp points. The flowers are male and 
female on different plants ; the calyces of the male flowers stand in a conical catkin, which consists of a 
common spike-stalk, in which three opposite flowers are placed in a triple row, and a tenth flower at the 
end. At the base of each flower is a broad short scale fixed laterally to a columnar pedicle ; there is no 
corolla ; the filaments in the terminating flower are three, tapering, united at the bottom into one body, and 
furnished with simple antherae, but in the lateral flowers the filaments are scarcely perceptible, and the 
antherae are fixed to the scale of the calyx. The calyx of the female flowers is composed of three small per- 
manent scaly segments growing to the germen ; the petals are three, stiff, sharp, permanent ; the germen 
supports three styles, supplied with simple stigmata : the fruit is a roundish fleshy berry, marked with 
tubercles, which are the vestiges of the petals and calyx ; when ripe the berry is of a blackish purple colour, 
and contains three small hard irregular shaped seeds. It flowers in May and June. 
Savin is a native of the South of Europe and the Levant ; it has been long cultivated in our gardens. 
The leaves and tops of Savin have a moderately strong smell of the disagreeable kind, and a hot, 
bitterish, acrid taste ; they give out great part of their active matter to watery liquors, and the whole 
| to rectified spirit. Distilled with water they yield a large quantity of essential oil. Decoctions of the 
leaves, freed from the volatile principle by inspissation to the consistence of an extract, retain a consi- 
| derable share of their pungency and warmth along with their bitterness, and have some degree of smell, 
but not resembling that of the plant itself. On inspissating the spirituous tincture, there remains an 
] extract consisting of two distinct substances, of which one is yellow, unctuous or oily, bitterish, and very 
pungent; the other black, resinous, tenacious, less pungent, and subastringent. 
Savin is a powerful and active medicine, it heats and stimulates the whole system very considerably, 
j and is said to promote the fluid secretions. The plant we are told has been frequently employed, and with too 
i much success, for purposes the most infamous and unnatural. It seems probable, however, that it has in 
this way been somewhat over rated, as it is found very frequently to fail as an emmenagogue, though this, 
! in some measure, may be ascribed to the smallness of the dose in which it has been usually prescribed 
by physicians ; for Dr. Cullen observes, “ that Savin is a very acrid and heating substance, and I have been 
t | often, upon account of these qualities, prevented from employing it in the quantity perhaps necessary to 
! render it emmenagogue ; but I have been frequently disappointed in this, and its heating qualities always 
j require a great deal of caution.” Dr. Home appears to have had very great success with this medicine, for in 
| five cases of amenorrhoea which occurred at the Royal Infirmary at Edinburgh, four were cured by the 
i Sabina, which he gave in powder from a scruple to a dram twice a day. He says it is well suited to the 
I debile, but improper in plethoric habits, and therefore orders repeated bleedings before its exhibition, 
i Externally Savin is recommended as an escharotic to foul ulcers, syphillitic, warts, &c. 
Professor Taylor says that,* £C tlie Juniperus Sabina of botanists, is a well-known plant, the leaves or tops 
of which contain an irritant poison in the form of an acrid volatile oil of a peculiar terebinthinate odour. 
| They exert an irritant action, both in the state of infusion and powder. They yield by distillation about 
j three per cent, by weight of a light yellow oil, on which the irritant properties of the plant depend. The 
powder is sometimes used in medicine in a dose of from five to twenty grains. Savin is not often taken as 
a poison for the specific purpose of destroying life, but this is occasionally an indirect result of its use, and 
it therefore demands the attention of the medical jurist. From cases which have been referred to me, I 
: believe that poisoning by it is much more frequent than is commonly supposed. 
££ The strong local irritant properties of the leaves, which depend on the essential oil, are well known 
from the uses of savin-ointment in pharmacy. The plant grows extensively in country places, and is easily 
accessible to the evil disposed. It does not appear to have attracted much notice on the continent, for 
Orfila is silent on the subject, except in so far as it affects dogs. Two cases of its fatal effects in the human 
female were communicated to Dr. Christison. In one, a dose of the strong infusion was twice taken by a 
female. She suffered from severe pain and strangury, aborted, and died five days afterwards. On inspec- 
tion, there was extensive peritoneal inflammation, with the effusion of fibrinous flakes ; the inside of the 
stomach was red, with patches of florid extravasation. The contents had a green colour, and savin was 
proved to be present by the microscope. In the second, a girl was seized with violent colicky pains, vomit- 
ing, tenesmus, dysuria, and fever. After suffering several days she died. The stomach and intestines were 
inflamed ; the former in parts black, and at the lower curvature perforated. A greenish powder was also 
found in this case, and when washed and dried it had the pungent taste of savin. 
“ The dried powder, which, owing to the loss of volatile oil is less energetic than the fresh tops, is given 
in doses of from five to fifteen grains. The medicinal dose of the essential oil is commonly from two to six 
drops. The infusion and decoction, which are sometimes used for the expulsion of worms, are less energetic 
than the fresh tops, because they cannot be prepared without giving rise to a loss of the volatile oil. The 
oil is not so irritant as it is commonly supposed to be ; but in those cases in which it has been said to pro- 
duce no marked effects in large doses, it is very probable that it was much adulterated. 
* On Poisons, page 519. 
