Juniper tree ("Juniperus phoenicea") is applied in dotted patterns on bisque drinking cups. Gitran makes the water more fragrant and is said to be good for the teeth. Some Indigenous peoples, such as the Dineh, have traditionally used juniper for diabetes. Native Americans have also used juniper berries as a female contraceptive. The 17th Century herbalist physician Nicholas Culpeper recommended the ripened berries for conditions such as asthma and sciatica, as well as to speed childbirth. The plant was long used as an arbortifacient and was known as 'bastard killer' in the UK. Juniper is one of the plants used in
Catholic Church and abortion Catholic clergy considers Augustine's reflections on abortion to be of little value in the present day because of the limitations of the science of embryology at that time. Later writers such as John Chrysostom and Caesarius of Arles, as well as later Church councils (e.g. Lerida and Braga II), also condemned abortion as "gravely wrong", without making a distinction between "formed" and "unformed" fetuses nor defining precisely in what stage of pregnancy human life began. While the Church has always condemned abortion, changing beliefs about the moment the embryo gains a human soul have led to changes in canon law