Thorn apple as a medicinal plant

Thorn apple (Datura stramonium) is originally from southern Asia. It spread to the West from the fourth century BC. It was referred to in the Graeco-Roman world (Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen) for its anaesthetic properties and as a remedy against epilepsy.

During the Renaissance it was used as a tranquilliser and to temper spasms.
In the eighteenth century it won great notoriety as a toxic plant, but at the start of the nineteenth century knowledge of its therapeutic powers as an anti-asthmatic reached Europe.

Today substances are extracted from thorn apple similar to those found in deadly nightshade, which are mostly used as anaesthetics.