The original range of Atropa belladonna was from southern Europe to Asia but today is naturalized in many parts of the world. Photo credit: Smithsonian Institution.

This extremely poisonous plant has a long and colorful history of use and abuse. When Linnaeus formally applied a scientific name to this plant in 1753, he acknowledged its toxic nature as well as its social value.

In Greek mythology, the three Fates (Moirai) were responsible for spinning, measuring the length of human life, and ending it. Clotho spins the thread of life, Lachesis measures and allots the length of one’s life, and Atropos severs it. The genus name of belladonna is a derivation of Atropos, meaning “inexorable” or “inflexible,” the Fate that severs the thread of life.

The species epithet comes from the Italian word “belladonna” for beautiful woman, a reference to this plants’ use by Venetian ladies of the court who dilated their pupils with a tincture of belladonna eye-drops. There is a painting, “Woman with a Mirror” by the Renaissance painter, Titian, that hangs in the Louvre Museum. It pictures a young, beautiful Venetian “belladonna” who may have used atropine drops to dilate the pupils of her eyes to enhance their beauty.

The original range of Atropa belladonna was from southern Europe to Asia but today is naturalized in many parts of the world. Photo credit: Smithsonian Institution.

The three Fates, or Moirai, on "The Triumph of Death," a Flemish tapestry, ca. 1520, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Bas relief of Atropos cutting the thread of life.

“Woman with a Mirror,” a painting by the Renaissance painter, Titian. Louvre Museum, Paris, France.

Atropa belladonna is a medium sized shrub with dark green leaves and distinct purple bell-shaped flowers. The original range of this species was from southern Europe to Asia but today is naturalized in many parts of the world. Photo credit: Smithsonian Institution.

Belladonna has simple, alternate leaves and flowers placed singly within the axils of leaves. Photo credit: Bugwood Forestry Images.

The sweet-tasting belladonna fruit is a purple-black berry attractive to children, sometimes fatally so. It is not a plant to include in your garden! Photo credit: Bugwood Forestry Images.

With all these highly toxic compounds, one might wonder why deadly nightshade was and is still being used by people. As with many poisonous plants there are many reasons for their use, both good (medicinal) and bad (weapons and poisons). The Romans used belladonna as a biological weapon to contaminate their enemies’ food reserves. In Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, the Scottish army defeats the Danes by contaminating their liquor supply with belladonna, inducing a deep, comatose sleep, and murdering them in their hapless state. Deadly nightshade was also an important plant in the medieval witches’ pharmacopoeia in brews and salves, used as a constituent in their flying ointments. During World War II, the Germans invented a deadly, odorless nerve gas and the only antidote to its paralyzing effects turned out to be atropine.

Preparations of belladonna plasters came into common usage during the 19th and early 20th centuries for a wide variety of conditions including neuralgia, chronic rheumatism, muscle and back pain, and pulmonary tuberculosis.