Nightshade
Fast Facts:
– Nightshade is also known as belladonna
– Scientific name is Atropa belladona
– A popular cosmetic in the middle ages
– Ingesting a single leaf or 10 berries is lethal
– Evidence used to kill Roman emperor Claudius
– Used by “Agatha Christie” killer
Deadly nightshade is also known as Belladonna (Atropa belladona), derived from the Italian for “beautiful lady” (bella donna). It had a popular use as a cosmetic in the middle ages as the juice of the berries were applied to the cheeks as a blush and a diluted solution was used as an eye drop to dilate the pupils (to make a woman more appealing to her suitor).
Nightshade is highly toxic with only the ingestion of one leaf or 10 berries being enough to kill. There is a history of the poison being used to kill (although there have been accidental deaths as well). The juice from the berries was used on poison arrow heads. Stories have it that 11th century Scottish king, Mac Bethad mac Findláich, known in English as Macbeth, used nightshade to poison Danes invading Scotland in 1040. Evidence points to Roman emperor Claudius being murdered with nightshade by assassin Locusta for Agrippina the Younger.
A more contemporary murder occurred on 24th December, 1977 and was taken straight from the pages of an Agatha Christie story. Literally. An elderly couple sat down to their Christmas Eve dinner and opened a bottle of wine their nephew had given them. They normally abstained, but had saved the bottle for a special occasion. Minutes later the couple were unconscious. A neighbour happened upon them soon after and while too late for the gentleman, his wife was rushed to hospital (although 11 days later was still in a coma). Doctors believed it was food poisoning.
It would have been dismissed as a tragic accident, except for the fact their son-in-law and a local carpenter visited teh couple’s home a few days later. For some reason they drank the still open bottle of wine and both collapsed on the floor unconscious. Luckily for the men, they both recovered, but it meant the police were now involved. Analysis of the wine revealed the lethal poison, atropine.
Obviously attention turned to the nephew who’d given them the wine. Police searched his apartment, finding bottles of medicine and poison, magazine and newspaper articles on poisons and several Agatha Christie novels, one of which, the short story The Thumb Mark of St Peter, had several key passages underlined.
In the Agatha Christie story, an elderly man saves his atropine eye drops and puts them in his son’s glass of water. Atropine is a toxin found in nightshade.
While Agatha Christie was correct in that you can get atropine from eye drops (they cause dilation of the pupils), she was incorrect when she wrote the poison couldn’t be detected in an autopsy.
The nephew confessed, but not to the murder of his uncle. As the nephew knew his aunt and uncle didn’t drink, he expected them to offer the wine to a friend of his… the intended victim.
References:
https://www.murdermiletours.com/blog/deadly-poisons-used-by-murderers-serial-killers-despots
https://www.thoughtco.com/famous-poisoning-cases-4118225
https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/dec/24/agatha-christie-christmas-poisoner-murdered-by-the-book
https://listverse.com/2012/12/02/10-poisons-used-to-kill-people/
April 16, 2021 at 9:58 pm
Oooo sneaky! “I know you don’t drink so I shall give you wine, knowing that you will pass it along to this person” 🤭 what a risk! And it didn’t even work!
April 17, 2021 at 9:03 am
I know! I mean, they could just have easily have shared it with anyone else. And what if they decided to keep i until their nephew came over for dinner, lol? That would have been an interesting conversation!
April 17, 2021 at 12:11 am
ah, wrong victim, too bad 🤭 I’m amazed at how many poisons are existing (well 26 at least!), and are used by humans…
Quilting Patchwork & Appliqué
April 17, 2021 at 9:06 am
I think the scariest things is how many are readily available (“Q” scares me a lot!).
April 17, 2021 at 12:19 am
Of course–Nightshade! Always good to have an opportunity to mention Agatha Christie.
April 17, 2021 at 9:07 am
Couldn’t let that one slip past 😉 Agatha Christie was my first adult murder mystery author (of course), followed by Dick Francis. Both still favourite reads.
April 17, 2021 at 3:18 am
Another fascinating post – why are criminals so silly to keep evidence in their own home. Interestingly atropine is one of the drugs used to treat mushroom poisoning.
April 17, 2021 at 9:10 am
I guess it’s lucky for the police that criminals aren’t too bright. although maybe if they were smarter they wouldn’t think the answer to their problem was to murder.
April 17, 2021 at 7:41 am
A classic, I must have read six or eight epic fantasies with a Deadly Nightshade as the female antagonist.
April 17, 2021 at 9:14 am
Totally a classic, I think it must be one of the most famous in literature.
April 17, 2021 at 9:22 am
Belladonna is common where I grew up, and my Mom always told us not to eat the interesting looking berries. It was hard to believe the might have caused harm, but we didn’t want to press our luck.
Speaking of (bad) luck, how unfortunate that these unsuspecting people drank the wine, and how ironic they really weren’t supposed to. Talk about plans gone bad.
April 17, 2021 at 12:41 pm
Lucky you listened to your mum (I wonder how many kids got sick because they didn’t listen!).
April 17, 2021 at 2:11 pm
That story is bizarre. Truth is stranger than fiction, huh?
April 17, 2021 at 2:58 pm
You couldn’t write it!
April 18, 2021 at 10:10 am
But belladonna can be used for treating something, right? In a small dose? I seem to think I saw it as an ingredient in some herbal supplement I take. (I might be mixing this up with something else, though.)
April 18, 2021 at 2:54 pm
Yes it is. I think it’s used in a number of treatments, but obviously in very tiny doses.
April 19, 2021 at 2:45 am
Wow! I am fascinated by the murder account you give here. And I know the story, so… wow. And, I mean, it was awfully dumb of the nephew to keep the actual book in his home, with passages underlined. And also to be so dumbly-sneaky about getting the poison to the intended victim. Just… wow. Of course, I guess it might have all worked out for him. I guess he was gambling, and lost. But still, so many things could (and did) go wrong.
April 21, 2021 at 8:42 am
I didn’t realize both the leaves and berries are toxic!
April 22, 2021 at 2:50 pm
Easier to just avoid the plant completely!