540 'ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1920. 



HISTORY OF THE GENUS DATURA. 



The earliest account of a plant of this genus is that of the learned 

 Arab Avicenna, who in the eleventh century described a certain fruit 

 under the name jous-matfael, or metel nut, and mentioned it among 

 the drugs of the Arabic pharmacopaea (pi. 1). Avicenna's account 

 was translated by Dioscorides, and this so-called nut was recognized 

 by Matthioli and other early botanists as the fruit of a narcotic solan- 

 aceous plant, which was described two centuries later by Linnseus 

 under the name Datura metel. 



Christoval Acosta, in his Tractado de las Drogas y Medicinas de 

 las Indias Orientales (1578), gives an account of it under the name 

 Datura, stating that in the East Indies it was much used as an 

 aphrodisiac. Its trumpet-shaped flowers he compares to those of a 

 Convolvulus in form and its seeds in size to lentils. Among the 

 Hindu enamoradas, he says, few are without Datura seeds among 

 their most highly prized treasures. They were ground to a powder 

 and administered in wine or some other medium, and 



he who partakes of it is deprived of his reason (queda enagenada) , for a long 

 time laughing or weeping or sleeping, with various effects, and oftentimes talk- 

 ing and replying; so that at tiroes he appears to be in his right mind, but 

 really being out of it and not knowing the person to whom he is speaking nor 

 remembering what has happened after his alienation has passed. Many mun- 

 dane ladies are such mistresses and adepts in the use of this seed that they 

 give it in doses corresponding to as many hours as they wish their poor victim 

 to be unconscious or transported. And, truly, if I were to tell stories of what I 

 have heard or seen relating to this matter and the different ways I have seen 

 people act when under the influence of the drug I would fill many sheets of 

 paper, but as this is not necessary I will refrain. I will only say that I have 

 never seen anyone die from its effects, but I have seen some who have gone 

 about for several days perturbed, and this must have been because it had 

 been given to them in too large doses, which, if too great, will cause death, 

 because this seed contains venomous parts, although the Gentiles administer it 

 as a diuretic with pepper and betel loaves and say it is efficacious, but this I 

 have not seen nor tried, having other medicines more safe for the purpose. 7 



The high esteem with which this plant was regarded by the ancient 

 Chinese is indicated by Li Shi-Chen, in his celebrated work on the 

 Materia Meclica of China, Peu ts'ao hang mu, published in 1590. 

 According to this author the Chinese name of this plant, man tfo lo 

 hua (probably derived from the Sanscrit) is taken from a famous 

 Buddhist sutra, " Fa hua ching," in which it is declared that when 

 Buddha preaches a sermon the heavens bedew the petals of this plant 

 with rain drops ; and, according to a more ancient tradition of the 

 Taoists, the name of the plant is that of one of the circumpolar stars, 

 and every envoy sent down from this star to the earth is supposed to 



7 Acosta, Christoval, Tractado de las Drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales, p. 88, 

 1578. 



