Belladonna, also called deadly nightshade, is one of the most toxic plants in the world. Its scientific name is Atropa belladonna, and it belongs to the same plant family as tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers. Despite its danger, compounds extracted from the plant have been used in medicine for centuries, and small amounts of its alkaloids still appear in certain pharmaceutical products today.
The Plant and How to Recognize It
Belladonna is a medium-sized shrub with dark green leaves and distinctive purple, bell-shaped flowers. The leaves are simple and alternate along the stem, and each flower grows singly where a leaf meets the branch. Its native range stretches from southern Europe into Asia, but the plant has since naturalized across many parts of the world, including parts of North America.
The feature that makes belladonna especially dangerous is its fruit: a glossy, purple-black berry that tastes sweet. That sweetness is a serious hazard. Children are naturally drawn to the berries, and a single berry can be fatal to a child. For an adult, eating eight to ten berries or just one leaf is enough to be lethal. Several other plants in the nightshade family look similar, including bittersweet nightshade, black nightshade, and jimson weed, which can make identification tricky for foragers or gardeners who aren’t familiar with the differences.
Where the Name Comes From
Belladonna means “beautiful woman” in Italian. The name traces back to a cosmetic practice during the Renaissance, when women dropped juice from the plant into their eyes to dilate their pupils. Larger pupils were considered attractive at the time, so the plant became associated with beauty. Eye surgeons still use tiny amounts of atropine, the plant’s key compound, during procedures to enlarge the pupils for the same basic reason: it relaxes the muscles that control pupil size.
What Makes It Toxic
Every part of the belladonna plant contains chemicals called tropane alkaloids, primarily hyoscyamine and scopolamine. When hyoscyamine is processed, it converts into atropine. These compounds block a specific chemical messenger in the nervous system that controls involuntary functions like heart rate, digestion, saliva production, and pupil size.
When someone ingests belladonna, those systems go haywire. The classic signs of poisoning include flushed skin, extremely dry mouth and skin, dilated pupils that can’t focus, a rapid heartbeat, and rising blood pressure. In more severe cases, confusion, hallucinations, seizures, and coma can follow. Medical students have traditionally learned the symptoms with a mnemonic: “hot as a hare, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beet, mad as a hatter.”
Poisoning is treated as a medical emergency. In life-threatening cases, doctors can administer a specific antidote that reverses the effects of the alkaloids, though this is reserved for severe situations because the antidote itself carries risks.
Medical Uses Past and Present
Despite its lethality in raw form, belladonna has a long history in medicine. In 1803, the Edinburgh physician Andrew Duncan documented its use in powdered leaf or root form for conditions including epilepsy, mania, and melancholy. By the 1950s, belladonna plasters were available over the counter in the UK for ailments ranging from rheumatism to pulmonary tuberculosis.
Today, belladonna alkaloids still have a narrow role in medicine. A combination of belladonna alkaloids with phenobarbital is used to treat cramping and spasms in the stomach and intestines, and it may be prescribed for stomach ulcers. These products are available as tablets or liquid formulations. Atropine also remains useful in ophthalmology and emergency medicine, though always in carefully controlled doses far smaller than what the raw plant delivers.
The Homeopathic Teething Tablet Controversy
Belladonna made headlines in recent years for a much less controlled use. Homeopathic teething tablets marketed by Hyland’s and sold by retailers including CVS contained belladonna as an ingredient. In theory, homeopathic preparations dilute active ingredients to trace levels. In practice, the FDA found that the actual amounts of atropine and scopolamine in these tablets were not uniform from one tablet to the next. Some tablets contained levels far exceeding what the labels stated.
The FDA issued its first warning against these products in September 2016, confirmed elevated belladonna levels in January 2017, and by April 2017, Hyland’s parent company initiated a nationwide voluntary recall. The FDA also issued warning letters to multiple other homeopathic manufacturers. The agency’s position was direct: homeopathic teething tablets containing belladonna pose an unnecessary risk to infants and children, and consumers should not use them.
This episode highlighted a broader concern. Because homeopathic products in the United States are not held to the same manufacturing standards as conventional drugs, inconsistent concentrations of potentially dangerous plant compounds can end up in products marketed for the most vulnerable patients.
Belladonna in the Nightshade Family
People sometimes worry about belladonna’s relationship to common foods. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and potatoes all belong to the nightshade family (Solanaceae), which leads to occasional confusion. These food plants do contain trace alkaloids, but not the tropane alkaloids that make belladonna deadly. The amounts present in food nightshades are generally harmless for the vast majority of people. Coffee and garlic are sometimes mistakenly grouped with nightshades, but they belong to entirely different plant families.
The key distinction is that belladonna concentrates its toxins at levels hundreds of times higher than anything found in a tomato or potato. There is no meaningful comparison between eating a potato and handling deadly nightshade.