Spec. Plant Willd. i. 1007. Cl. 5. Ord. 1. Pentandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Solanaceae. G. 337. Corolla funnel-shaped, plaited. Calyx tubular, angled; deciduous. Capsule with four valves. Species 2. D. Stramonium. Thorn apple. Med. Dot. 3d edit. 197.

t. 74. Smithy Flor. Brit. 253. Biglow, Amer. Med. Dot. i. 17-Officinal. Stramonii folia et semina, Lond. Daturae Stramonii herba, Edin. Stramonium; herba, semina, Dub.

The herbaceous part of the Thorn-apple plant.

Syn. Pomme Epineuse (F.), Gemeine Stechapfel (G.), Dornappel (Dutch), Piigaeble (Dan.), Spikklubba (Swed.), Jondera (Pol.), Stramonio (I.), Estra-monio (S. & Port.), Karoo Oomatie (Tarn.), Dhetoora (H.), Jeuz massel( Arab.), Goozgneah (Pers.), Rotecubung (Malay), Kala D'hatoora(Bemg.), Kaloo Attana (Cyng.), Krishna Dhaturra (Sans.).1

This annual plant is a native of America, but is now naturalized to this country, and found growing on dunghills and by road-sides2, from the fruit ejected from gardens; flowering in July and August. It rises about two feet in height, with a round stem, branching and dichotomous above; spreading and leafy. The leaves, which spring from the forks of the stem on long round petioles, are large, of a dark green colour on the upper surface, and pale beneath; irregularly ovate-triangular in figure, sinuated, and unequal at the base: the flowers are large, axillary, and solitary, on short erect peduncles : the calyx is about two inches in length, tubular, pentangular, and five-toothed : the corolla longer, of a white colour, funnel-shaped, and plaited: with the filaments, which support oblong flat anthers, adhering to the tube; and the style filiform, terminated with a thick club-shaped stigma When the corolla and its included parts drop, the calyx also separates, except the base, which remains, and, becoming reflex, enlarges with the receptacle as a support to the fruit The fruit is a large, fleshy, ovate-roundish, four-cornered capsule, beset with sharp awl-shaped spines, four-celled at the base, two-celled at the apex, and containing a great number of reniform compressed seeds.

The leaves, capsule, and seeds, are medicinally used.1

1 These oriental synonymes, although inserted under this species, yet are those of D.fastuosa.

3 Very common about London.

Qualities.-The whole herb has a narcotic foetid odour, producing headach; a bitterish nauseous taste, and gives to the saliva a deep green tinge when chewed. The analysis of Promnitz gives, as the components of thorn-apple, gummy extractive 58, extractive 6, chlorophylle 64, albumen 15, resin 12, and phosphate of lime and magnesia 23 : = 178 parts. According to Wedenberg2, it contains gum (mucus?) and resin, a volatile matter (which I find to be carbonate of ammonia), and a narcotic principle, which has lately been ascertained by M. Brandes to be an alkaline salt. He obtained it from the seeds, in which it is combined with malic acid, and named it Daturia. It is nearly insoluble in water and in cold alcohol, but boiling alcohol dissolves it, and, on cooling, lets it fall in flocculi. It is crystallized with difficulty, but has been obtained in quadrangular acicular crystals. It forms neutral salts with the acids3, which are highly poisonous : yet Berzelius says this salifiable base is merely phosphate of ammonia.4 Daturia is procured by boiling the seeds in alcohol, treating the tincture with magnesia, which combines with the malic acid, and throws down the daturia with excess of magnesia.

By treating the precipitate with alcohol, the daturia is taken up, and crystallizes as the solution cools. The medicinal virtues of the herb are extracted both by water and alcohol.

1 According to Dr. W. Ainslie, this species of Datura is not found in India; but the D. fastuosa, Dhetoora (Hind.), Dhaturra (Sans.), Kkassian (Jav.), is well known and medicinally used.-Mat. Med. of Hindostan, 4to. p. 42.

2 Dissertatio Medica de Stramonii Usu, etc. Upsal, 4to.

3 Journ. de Physique, xci. p. 144. 4 Traite de Chimie, t. iv. 319.

The watery infusion is transparent, with a very pale yellow hue, which is dissipated by acids, but very much deepened by the alkalies. It throws down whitish precipitates with acetate and superacetate of lead, and a black precipitate with nitrate of silver. Solution of sulphate of iron strikes a deep olive colour, and bichloride of mercury renders it milky; but neither is precipitated till after a very considerable time.

Medical properties and uses.-Thorn-apple is narcotic and stimulant. Baron Stoerck first recommended it as an internal remedy in cases of mania and epilepsy; but as Cullen remarks, he was less violent in his commendations of it than of the other narcotic plants which he introduced.1 It was afterwards tried by other continental physicians with unequal success; particulary by Greding, who made the greatest number of trials of it. But the most decided experiments in its favour have been made by Dr. Barton, of America, who regards it as a remedy of great efficacy. He found that, when the dose of the dried herb was gradually increased to thirty grains, it dilated the pupil, and produced paralysis of the eyelids; effects which were removed by a blister. Cataplasms of the bruised fresh leaves have been successfully used as an application to inflammatory tumours, and for discussing masses of indurated milk in the breasts of nurses; and an ointment made with the powdered leaves allays the pain of haemorrhoids.

Smoking the plant in the manner of tobacco affords relief in the paroxysms of spasmodic asthma; a practice introduced into England from Ceylon. The inspissated, expressed juice of the leaves has been usually given; and the extract has been lately found almost specific in severe chronic pains. The seeds are more powerful than the herb. The root is given by the native practitioners in the Carnatic, in violent headaches. Hufeland recommends the form of tincture. The dose of the powdered plant is grs. x. to Эj.; that of the extract, at first, should not exceed gr. ss. twice a day, increasing the quantity gradually, until grs. xij. be taken in twenty-four hours.

Several instances of the fatal effects of stramonium, when eaten by mistake, are recorded by authors.2 It produces at first intoxication, with intense redness of the face, then high delirium, stupor, convulsions, furious madness, paralysis, cold sweats, and death. In some cases, the skin of the face, neck, and breast, were covered with brilliant stellated petechiae. When death does not ensue, the attack terminates with a troublesome itching, which slowly subsides. As these effects depend on the narcotic principle and determination of blood to the head, bleeding is indicated : no antidote is known: but the free use of vinegar, after the stomach has been emptied, has been found useful.

1 Materia Medica, ii. p. 281.

2 It is said to be sometimes used by the Turks instead of opium, or as a substitute for wine; and the Chinese infuse the seeds in beer. - Spratt's Hist, of the Roy. Soc. 162.