Important: Safety Warning
This page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
In addition, this page presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Stramonium
a common thorn apple. It is a stout, ill-scented weed widely diffused on both sides of the Atlantic. In Virginia the stramonium is called James-town weed or jimson weed. A powerful drug is extracted from the leaves and seeds. This extract is a narcotic, and has much the same effect as belladonna, to which, indeed, stramonium is a near relative. The drug, stramonium, is a remedy for convulsions, epilepsy, and certain forms of mania. The leaves are smoked to relieve asthma. It is said that the priests of the Delphic oracle took stramonium to produce the frenzy with which they were supposed to be inspired.
Volume V · Aiton’s Encyclopedia