Authentication of two eighteenth century juniper-containing drug remains by HPLC–MS/MS and GC–MS

Abstract

Two historical remains of juniper-containing drugs, dating from the eighteenth century, were analyzed using two separation techniques with mass detection (HPLC–MS/MS and GC–MS). As reference material, replicates of one of these analyzed historical remains, juniper preserve, were prepared according to period recipes. Although the HPLC–MS/MS method was suitable for authenticating the origin of a drug prepared from juniper berries (i.e., juniper preserve), it proved unsuitable for a drug containing only juniper wood. In contrast, GC–MS was able to demonstrate that this drug did indeed contain juniper wood. Thus both studied samples were verified to be juniper-containing drugs. A remarkable stability of some glycosides was observed in the samples analyzed. The presence of viridiflorin was demonstrated for the first time in the juniper plant, and a detailed ESI+-MSn fragmentation of this substance was proposed. Graphical abstract