Atropa bella-donna

• 1. Six Berries

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  Atropa bella-donna, better known as deadly nightshade, put one adult woman into severe poisoning in 2009 after she mistook its berries for blueberries. She ate six. Doctors documented the result as a severe anticholinergic syndrome, a collapse in the body's normal chemical signalling. The plant behind that mistake belongs to the nightshade family, the same family that gives us tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant. For centuries people have used it to look beautiful, to ease pain, to kill and to dream. Why does its scientific name pair a figure from Greek myth with an Italian phrase? What exactly does it do to the human body? And what did people once believe witches did with it?

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• 2. Names and Nicknames

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  Carl Linnaeus published the name Atropa bella-donna in his Species Plantarum in 1753. He chose the genus name Atropa because of the plant's poison. Atropos was one of the three Greek Fates. Her sisters spun and measured a person's thread of life, and she cut it. Her name means 'she who may not be turned aside', the inflexible and implacable one. For the species name he turned to Italian, where bella-donna means 'beautiful woman'. It nodded to the plant's cosmetic use during the Renaissance.

  The hyphen in bella-donna is a correction. Linnaeus himself wrote bella donna with a space between the two words. The International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants treats that space as an error. Article 60.11 calls for a hyphen instead.

  The English name belladonna arrived through John Gerard, who used it in his illustrated Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes, first published in 1597. It displaced the older English name dwale. An English translation of 1633 was regarded as the best and most exhaustive work of its kind, and it served as a standard reference for some time. The plant has collected many other names along the way. They include divale, banewort, devil's berries, death cherries, beautiful death, devil's herb, great morel and dwayberry.

  The nightshade family stretches well beyond the kitchen garden. Thornapple, tobacco, wolfberry and chili peppers all share it with this plant.

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• 3. Anatomy and Range

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  Plants stand up to 2 m tall, though 1.5 m is more usual. The branching stems often grow like a small shrub from a fleshy rootstock. The ovate leaves reach 18 cm in length. The bell-shaped flowers are dull purple, tinged yellow-green toward the base, and faintly scented. The berries start green and ripen to a shiny black, about 1.5 cm across. They taste sweet, and birds eat them and spread the seeds in their droppings despite the alkaloids inside. A pale-yellow form with pale yellow fruit is known as Atropa bella-donna var. lutea.

  Black nightshade, Solanum nigrum, causes much of the confusion. It sits in a different genus and is far less poisonous. Its berries are spherical, dull and carried in clusters. Deadly nightshade berries are glossier, twice as large, somewhat flattened and borne singly. Black nightshade flowers are white and star-shaped, with a central cone of yellow anthers rather than a tube.

  The native range runs from England in the west to western Ukraine, and to the Iranian province of Gilan in the east. It covers temperate southern, central and eastern Europe, Morocco and Algeria in northwestern Africa, and Turkey, Iran and the Caucasus. In the British Isles it is native only in England. There it favours calcareous soils, disturbed ground, field margins, hedgerows and open woodland. Wales, Scotland and Ireland have it as an alien, and in Ireland it is a relic of cultivation as a medicinal herb.

  Introduced plants have settled north and west of the native range in Europe, and in parts of North America, China, Australia and New Zealand. A botanical record of southern Sweden, Flora of Skåne in 1870, noted it growing in apothecary gardens near Malmö. In some regions it counts as a weed that colonises disturbed soil.

  Germination of the small seeds takes several weeks under alternating temperatures, because hard seed coats cause dormancy. Gibberellic acid can speed the process. Seedlings need sterile soil to avoid damping off, and they dislike root disturbance when transplanted. Gardeners rarely grow the plant, and those who do want its large upright habit and showy berries. Growers are advised to handle it only in gloves.

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• 4. Chemistry of a Poison

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  Roots carry the most tropane alkaloid, up to 1.3 percent. Leaves hold 1.2 percent, ripe berries 0.7, stalks 0.65, flowers 0.6 and seeds 0.4. Leaves peak in alkaloids while the plant is budding and flowering. Roots become most poisonous at the end of the growing season, though the most toxic part can vary from one specimen to another. Even the nectar is affected, since bees turn it into honey that also contains tropane alkaloids.

  Atropine, hyoscine (also called scopolamine) and hyoscyamine are the active agents. All three are anticholinergic. Atropine disrupts the parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates involuntary activity such as sweating, breathing and heart rate. The plant ranks among the most toxic known, and taking it by mouth raises the risk in conditions such as complications of pregnancy, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disorders and psychiatric disorders.

  Dilated pupils and sensitivity to light are among the first signs, followed by blurred vision, a racing heart, loss of balance and staggering. Headache, rash, flushing, severely dry mouth and throat, slurred speech, urinary retention and constipation follow. The mind goes too, with confusion, hallucinations, delirium and convulsions. The anticholinergic action also disrupts memory and learning. Reports add insomnia, local paralysis and dizziness, and swings from excitement to absolute rabidness.

  Children face the greatest danger from the berries, which look attractive and taste somewhat sweet. Even extremely small doses can lead to death. The effects of consuming the plant are unpredictable. The antidote is an anticholinesterase such as physostigmine, or a cholinomimetic such as pilocarpine, the same treatment used for atropine.

  Cattle and rabbits eat the plant seemingly without harm. Many other domestic animals are not so lucky and suffer narcosis and paralysis. In controlled doses, the same alkaloids would find their way into pharmacies.

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• 5. Beauty and Medicine

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  Drops made from the plant were widely claimed to dilate women's pupils, a look considered attractive and seductive. The drops work as a muscarinic antagonist, blocking the receptors in the eye muscles that shrink the pupil. In the first century BC, Cleopatra used atropine-rich extracts from Egyptian henbane, another nightshade, to widen her pupils. The price was minor visual distortions, trouble focusing on near objects and a faster heartbeat. Prolonged use was reputed to cause blindness, and the practice is now rarely seen.

  By the 4th century BC, Theophrastus was recommending mandrake, Mandragora, for wounds, gout and sleeplessness, and as a love potion. In the first century AD, Dioscorides recognised wine of mandrake as an anaesthetic, to be given before surgery or cautery. Nightshade preparations, often combined with opium, stayed in use as anaesthesia through the Roman and Islamic empires. They continued in Europe until modern anaesthetics replaced them in the 19th century.

  The German chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge (1795-1867) began the modern pharmacological study of belladonna extracts. In 1831, the German pharmacist Heinrich F. G. Mein (1799-1864) prepared the active substance in pure crystalline form and named it atropine. Purified l-atropine, isolated in the 1830s, has accepted medical uses. The raw plant has too little scientific evidence behind it to recommend for any condition.

  Donnatal is a prescription drug that combines belladonna alkaloids in a fixed ratio with phenobarbital. Each dose contains 0.0194 mg of atropine. It aims to ease spasms and give mild sedation. Its labeling and the FDA call it possibly effective as adjunctive therapy for irritable bowel syndrome and acute enterocolitis. The FDA has not approved it as safe or effective. It warns of harm to a fetus, heat prostration in hot climates, constipation, drowsiness and blurred vision.

  In the United States, belladonna is also marketed as a dietary supplement, typically as atropine in over-the-counter cold medicines. At about 0.2 milligram, such doses are probably safe by mouth, but evidence of effectiveness is inadequate. Manufacturing standards are unregulated, and some belladonna supplements have been found contaminated. In the early 20th century, the Towns-Lambert or Bella Donna Cure was a regimen for treating alcoholism.

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• 6. The Poisoner's Herb

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  Early humans made poisonous arrows from the plant. The tropane alkaloids that make it dangerous at the dinner table also make it useful on a weapon.

  Rumor held that the empress Livia Drusilla killed her husband, the emperor Augustus, with the juice of belladonna berries. A second story names Agrippina the Younger, wife of Emperor Claudius. She allegedly used the plant as poison on the advice of Locusta, a woman who specialised in poisons.

  During a truce, the Scots used the plant to poison the troops of the invading Harold Harefoot, King of England. The poisoned soldiers could not hold their ground. They had to retreat to their ships.

  Solomon Northup, a free black man, was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. Medical historians suspect he was poisoned with a combination of belladonna and laudanum.

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• 7. Ointments and Offerings

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  Witches were once believed to rub on a flying ointment made from belladonna, opium poppy and other poisonous plants such as monkshood and hemlock. Supposedly it helped them fly to gatherings with other witches or to join in bacchanalian carousal.

  Carlo Ginzburg and others argue that the ointments were meant to encourage hallucinatory dreaming. One explanation for pairing belladonna with opium poppy is that their alkaloids work against each other. Scopolamine comes from belladonna, and morphine comes from the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. The result was a dream-like waking state called hypnagogia, or intensified dreams during sleep. This antagonism was known in folk medicine and discussed in traditional medicine formularies.

  In Bukovina, in the Carpathians across the Romanian (Moldavian) and Ukrainian region, a girl could enhance her attractiveness with an offering to deadly nightshade. On a Sunday in Shrovetide she went to the fields in her Sunday best, with her mother and a bag of bread, salt and brandy. She dug up a nightshade root and left the three offerings in its place. She carried the root home on top of her head, avoiding quarrels and arguments both ways. If anyone asked what she was carrying, she kept the truth to herself, or the spell would break.

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• 8. Doubtful Remedies

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  For centuries, herbal medicine used belladonna as a pain reliever, muscle relaxer and anti-inflammatory. It was also given for menstrual problems, peptic ulcer disease, histaminic reaction and motion sickness. At least one 19th-century eclectic medicine journal explained how to prepare a belladonna tincture for direct administration.

  Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, prescribed belladonna in homeopathic form as a topical medication for inflammation and pain. It was diluted until none of the plant remained. Doktor Koster's Antigaspills, a homeopathic remedy for upset stomach and excessive flatulence, likewise contained no actual belladonna. There is insufficient scientific evidence to justify the plant for these or any other clinical disorders.

  In 2010 and 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration warned consumers against homeopathic teething tablets and gels containing belladonna for infants and children. It said the products may be toxic, causing "seizures, difficulty breathing, lethargy, excessive sleepiness, muscle weakness, skin flushing, constipation, difficulty urinating, or agitation". Counterintuitively, the lower potencies are more likely to contain belladonna, because they are less diluted.

  Datura stramonium, called thornapple or jimson weed, and belladonna have occasionally been taken as recreational drugs for the hallucinations and delirium they produce. Users usually describe the hallucinations as very unpleasant. The risk of an accidental fatal overdose makes the practice extremely dangerous. Scopolamine is the main psychoactive ingredient, with hyoscyamine to a lesser extent. The major effects last three to four hours, visual hallucinations can last three to four days, and some negative aftereffects linger for several days.

  Cultivation is legal in Europe, Pakistan, North America and Brazil. In the United States, drugs containing tropane alkaloids such as atropine are prescription-only. The FDA regards any over-the-counter product claiming efficacy and safety as an anticholinergic drug to be illegal. In Germany, a prescription is enough to buy belladonna leaves and roots at a pharmacy.

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