Mandrake
Pronunciation:MAN-draik
Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number:None
Formal Names:Mandragora officinarum
Informal Names:Satan’s Apple
Type:Depressant.Seepage 19
Federal Schedule Listing:Unlisted
USA Availability:Nonprescription natural product
Pregnancy Category:None
Uses.In some cultures European mandrake has traditional association with
the devil, perhaps because a little imagination can envision the plant’s root as
a small humanoid figure. The plant’s ominous connotation is illustrated in
Romeo and Juliet as Juliet approaches death and shudders about hearing
“shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth,” referring to a belief that the
plant screams if harvested. Witches reputedly made preparations from the
plant that enabled them to fly.
Medicinal usage of European mandrake may date back as far as ancient
Egypt, but in twenty-first-century Western medicine, only practitioners of ho-
meopathy use the substance for healing. (Homeopathy uses extremely weak
preparations of medicines.) Folk practitioners have given European mandrake
to fight depression, asthma, hay fever, whooping cough, colic, and stomach
ulcers. The plant has also been administered as a folk treatment to promote
fertility, perhaps inspired by the story in Genesis 30: 14–17. Such usage is
referred to by the line “Get with child a mandrake root” from John Donne’s
sonnet “Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star.” The plant is linked with romance
(Song of Solomon 7:13) and is a traditional aphrodisiac, although such a char-
acteristic has not received scientific confirmation. Sedative and pain relief ac-
tions made the plant one of the first surgical anesthetics, and an image of it
appears on the coat of arms of the British Association of Anaesthetists. Eu-
ropean mandrake contains the so-calledbelladonnaalkaloids atropine, hyo-
scyamine, and scopolamine; therefore, European mandrake produces actions
similar to those of belladonna.
Drawbacks.Unwanted effects can include rapid heartbeat, elevated body
temperature, decrease in sweat and salivation, and difficulty with urination
and bowel movements. The natural product initially acts as a sedative, but a