The Mandrake (Atropa Mandragora) has been exceptionally famous in medical history. Its reputation for the cure of sterility is alluded to in the story of Leah and Rachel (Genesis xxx, 14–16). It is not, however, certain that the Hebrew word “dudaim” should be translated mandrake. Various Biblical scholars have questioned this which was the Septuagint rendering. Lilies, violets, truffles, citrons, and other fruits have been suggested. In Cant., vii, 14, the same plant is described as fragrant, and the odour of the mandrake is said to be disagreeable. Mandragora is described in Chinese books of medicine, and from Hippocrates down to almost modern times every writer on the art of healing treats it with reverence. Hippocrates asserts that a small dose in wine, less than would occasion delirium, will relieve the deepest depression and anxiety. The roots of the mandrake are often of a forked shape and were supposed to represent the human form, some being regarded as male and others as female. This fancy originated with Pythagoras, who conferred on the mandrake the name of anthropomorphon. It was said that when the roots were drawn from the earth they gave a human shriek. Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet alludes to this superstition:
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth
That living mortals hearing them run mad.
In Othello again Shakespeare refers to this medicine, and particularly to its alleged narcotic properties:
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world.
In Antony and Cleopatra, too, Cleopatra says, “Give me to drink mandragora” (that she may sleep out the great gap of time while Antony is away); and Banquo in Macbeth, when he asks, “Or have we eaten of the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?” is believed to allude to the mandrake.
There is a good deal of evidence that mandragora was used in ancient and mediæval times not only as a soporific, but also as an anæsthetic. Dioscorides explicitly asserts this property of the root more than once. He describes a decoction of which a cupful is to be taken for severe pains, or “before amputations, or the use of the cautery, to prevent the pain of those operations.” Elsewhere he alludes to its employment in parturition, and in another passage dealing with a wine prepared from the external coat of the root, says, “The person who drinks it falls in a profound sleep, and remains deprived of sense three or four hours. Physicians apply this remedy when the necessity for amputation occurs, or for applying the cautery.” Pliny refers to the narcotic powers of the mandrake, and among later writers its effects are often described. Josephus mentions a plant which he calls Baaras, which cured demoniacs, but could only be procured at great risk, or by employing a dog to uproot it, the dog being killed in the process. This Baaras is supposed to have been mandrake. Dr. Lee in his Hebrew Lexicon quotes from a Persian authority an allusion to a similar root which, taken inwardly, “renders one insensible to the pain of even cutting off a limb.”
Baptista Porta describes the power of the mandrake in inducing deep sleep, and in A. G. Meissner’s “Skizzen,” published at Carlsruhe in 1782, there is a story of Weiss, surgeon to Augustus, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, who surreptitiously administered a potion (of what medicine is not stated) to his royal master, and during his insensibility cut off a mortifying foot.