54 Belladonna
used with uncertain results for depression, middle ear inflammation, and
some heart complaints and for attempts to promote weight loss. Depending
on dosage, the substance can act as a depressant or as a stimulant.
At one time the plant had cosmetic uses from which it supposedly gained
its Italian name meaning “beautiful lady.” The precise cosmetic usage is un-
certain: One authority mentions a rouge; another authority says the substance
whitened the skin; still another says that belladonna was simply a medicinal
application to remove pimples and other skin blemishes. Many accounts today
say that the cosmetic function was to make women more alluring by dilating
the eyes’ pupils, but those stories do not explain how flirting women would
have handled the pain and near-blindness caused by artificial dilation. Mod-
ern medicine uses the belladonna component atropine to dilate pupils.
Erotic dreams may occur from ingestion, and reputedly belladonna is con-
sidered an aphrodisiac in Morocco. Users have reported hallucinating inter-
actions with landscapes and other persons, experiences so compelling that
their hallucinatory nature was unapparent until the belladonna dose wore off.
Drawbacks.Dosage with the natural product belladonna is so risky that
persons are routinely advised to use it only under guidance of a trained
expert. For example, depending on circumstances a fatal dose can vary by a
factor of 10, meaning that a given ingestion might be survivable, but on an-
other occasion one tenth that amount could just as easily be fatal. Three berries
have been enough to kill youngsters. People have been poisoned by meat from
animals that ate belladonna. Just handling the plant can pass its drugs into
cuts and scrapes and even through unbroken skin. During World War II
troops stationed in East Africa suffered “wholesale poisoning” from bella-
donna, presumably due to recreational usage. Yet despite powerful effects on
humans, some nonhuman species (including birds, rabbits, pigs, and sheep)
can consume the plant without injury—an example of why caution is needed
in reaching conclusions from drug experiments on animals.
Experiments show that the scopolamine component of belladonna reduces
attention and vigilance while interfering somewhat with memory. Some vol-
unteers testing the drug report dizziness and blurred vision. Nonetheless, aer-
ospace researchers have concluded that scopolamine is a satisfactory motion
sickness medicine for active-duty crews.
Belladonna can interfere with urination and bowel movements—drug ac-
tions that are sometimes desirable, as in persons who have lost the ability to
restrain such body functions. Unwanted belladonna effects include delayed
passage of food from the stomach, overheating (aggravated by diminished
perspiration), dry mouth, skin rash, glaucoma, hyperactivity, jabbering (or
sometimes an opposite inability to speak), mania, anxiety, delirium, and con-
vulsions. Psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary is reputed to have claimed
he was unaware of anyone ever having a good experience with using bella-
donna as a hallucinogen, and firsthand accounts do seem mostly negative.
Stories say that in olden times belladonna was a component of witch’s brews;
if so, such persons certainly partook of it for purposes rather different from
those of modern recreational drug users. A medical journal author who ob-
served several recreational belladonna sessions judged the substance to be
powerful, but none of the users needed medical aid. Modern negative ac-