In a few localities in England and France, as well as in North America, the plant is cultivated for medicinal use.
History—Although a plant so striking as belladonna can hardly have been unknown to the classical authors, it cannot with certainty be identified in their writings.
Saladinus of Ascoli,[1670] who wrote an enumeration of medicinal plants about a.d. 1450, names the leaves of both Solatrum furiale and Solatrum minus, the former of which is probably Belladonna. However this may be, the first indubitable notice of it that we have met with, is in the Grand Herbier printed at Paris, probably about 1504.[1671] The plant is also mentioned about this period as Solatrum mortale or Dolwurtz, in the writings of Hieronymus Brunschwyg.[1672]
In 1542 belladonna was well figured as Solanum somniferum or Dollkraut by the German botanist Leonhard Fuchs, who fully recognized its poisonous properties.[1673] Yet it was confounded by other writers of this period as Tragus,[1674] who reproduced Fuchs’ figure as “Solanum hortense!” Strygium and Strychnon were other names not unfrequently applied to Atropa during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Matthiolus, who terms the plant Solatrum majus, states[1675] that it is commonly called by the Venetians Herba Bella donna, from the circumstance of the Italian ladies using a distilled water of the plant as a cosmetic. Gesner[1676] was also familiar with the name Belladonna. The introduction of the root of belladonna into British medicine is of recent date, and is due to Mr. Peter Squire of London, who recommended it as the basis of a useful anodyne liniment, about the year 1860.
Description—Belladonna has a large, fleshy, tapering root, 1 to 2 inches thick, and a foot or more in length, from which diverge stout branches. Externally the fresh roots are of an earthy brown, rough with cracks and transverse ridges. The bark is thick and juicy, and as well as the more fibrous central portion, is internally of a dull creamy white. A transverse section of the main root shows a distinct radiate structure. The root has an earthy smell with but very little taste at first, but a powerfully acrid after-taste is soon developed.
Dried root of Belladonna is sold in rough irregular pieces of a dirty greyish colour, whitish internally, breaking easily with a short fracture, and having an earthy smell not unlike that of liquorice root. The bark being probably the chief seat of the alkaloid, roots not exceeding the thickness of the finger should be preferred. The drug is for the most part imported from Germany, and is often of doubtful quality. English-grown root purchased in a fresh state (the large and old being rejected), then washed, cut into transverse segments and dried by a gentle heat, furnishes a more reliable and satisfactory article.
Microscopic Structure—There is a considerable structural difference between the main root and its branches, the former alone containing a distinct pith. This pith is included in a woody circle, traversed by narrow medullary rays. In the outer part of the woody circle, parenchymatous tissue is more prevalent than vascular bundles. The transverse section of the branches of the root exhibits a central vascular bundle instead of a medullary column. The outer vascular bundles show no regular arrangement; and medullary rays are not clearly obvious in the transverse section.
The woody parts, both of the main root and its branches, contain very large dotted vessels accompanied by a prosenchymatous tissue. The cells of the latter, however, are always thin-walled; the absence of proper so-called ligneous tissue explains the easy fracture of the root. Sometimes the prosenchyme in which the vessels are imbedded assumes a brownish hue and a waxy appearance, and such parts exhibit a very irregular structure.
In the cortical portion of belladonna root, many of the cells of the middle layer, and likewise some of the central parts of the root, are loaded with extremely small octahedric crystals of calcium oxalate. But most of the parenchymatous cells are filled up with small starch granules.