This Podcast Will Kill You - Ep 22 Belladonna will dilate your mind: Crossover w/ IDOP

Episode Date: March 19, 2019

Are you ready to dilate your mind? Or at least your eyes? We hope so, because that means you’re ready for another Poisoncast episode! This week we’re joined by our friend Matt Candeias from In Defense of Plants to chat about Atropa belladonna, a lethal yet beautiful plant that lives up to all of its many names, including deadly nightshade, belladonna, devil’s berries, and naughty man’s cherries (yes, really). We’ll explore the ancient myth, medieval lore, and modern murder that make up this plant’s history, and then we’ll venture into the nervous system to find out what belladonna has to do with fight or flight. Finally, we talk evolution to see how this deadly substance helps out its plant producer. Pour yourself a quarantini and listen up, making sure you’ve added the right berries to the mix, of course. Check out Matt’s website indefenseofplants.com and follow him on twitter @indfnsofplnts! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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With leading networking and connectivity, advanced cybersecurity and expert partnership, Comcast Business is powering the engine of modern business, powering possibilities. Restrictions apply. Hi. Hi. I'm Erin Welsh. And I'm Aaron Alman Updike. Hi, I'm Matt.

I'm Matt. I'm at Candace. I didn't know I was getting this one. And this is a crossover episode with This Podcast We'll Kill You and In Defensive Plants. Woo-hoo! Yes, we're very excited. But yeah, it's great because today we're going to be talking about another poison.

Poison cast part two. Yes. So if you haven't listened to Part 1, which is called Don't Tread on Me. Don't tread on my monkshood. Thanks. Thanks, guys. That was great. You're welcome.

Do go listen to it. It's great. It's super fun. It's both canon and standalone. That was super nerdy. Well, you know. Matt's like, welcome to the show. So we have a quarantini. What are we drinking? We're drinking Throwin Deadly Nightshade.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. What is in Throwin' Deadly Nightshade? So this is made with gin, blueberry puree, lemon juice, and elder flower liqueur. Mm-hmm. And it's really quite tasty.

It's delicious. And I don't know if it's just the theme. I haven't seen your other quarantinis, but you always make me the most beautiful looking drinks. We did have a really pretty one last time too. Yeah. No, this is gorgeous. And we wanted to make this one look a little bit like the Deadly Nightshade.

It worked. Yeah. It worked. Hence the blueberry. I'm worried. I'm worried. Maybe it is deadly nutshell. Luckily, I made them just like one big one, so we'll all die.

Unless someone has developed a tolerance. Foreshadowing. Because what are we talking about today, Matt, as you take a sip? We are talking about deadly nightshade, atropa, Bella Donna. Yes. I'm really excited about it. Like, I can't wait to talk about this and learn about it. It's all she's been talking to me about how excited she is.

It's true the whole day. I'm like, just hold it in. Don't tell me anything. It's got to be all fresh and new. I'm sorry, you have to, I didn't see any of you leading up to this for a while. So I was just safe in my own brain. You were just brimming with excitement over on your own. I don't know if I'm more excited for all of the cool information I learned or the detective work finding that information.

I'm proud of this one. Cool. Oh, I can't. That makes me even more. I'm intrigued. So we should jump right in. Mm-hmm. I guess so.

In our first crossover episode on poisons, we talked a lot about how there's this fine line between poisons and medicine, and that these plants can be viewed as medicinal or poisonous depending on who's administering the treatment, how much they know, and most importantly, what their intentions are. Yeah, what was your little spiel that you did? Are you a physician or a poison or a pretender or a magician or a handler? Yeah, it was very contrived. But I believed you. Yeah. That's the important thing. I'm the magician here.

But anyway, so yeah, so today we're going to return to this theme a little bit with a trope of Bella Donna, which is, as Matt mentioned, the scientific name for a plant also known as Belladonna, Deadly Nightshade, Beautiful Death, Duval, or Duvali, Dwayberry, Bainwort, Devil's Herb. Good Lord. Devil's cherries. devil's berries murderers berry sorcerers berries oh my god witch's berry

poison black cherry death cherries and my absolute favorite naughty man's cherries that makes two of us almost the name of our quarantine I didn't want to drink that though

wow that is a very long list of names I think you know I don't find common names to be terribly useful but when you see that many for one plant, it's done some stuff over the ears. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's a really good point, actually. It's kind of like how the only ants with common names are the ones that get into your house, right? Oh, yeah. God, so smart. But that is a really good point because, yeah, this is a serious plant we're talking about.

Yeah, and so it makes sense that it has all of these different names and it was really important to designate this plant as being distinct from other plants that either looked like it, or we're in the same family of poisonous plants. So, okay, just listing these names for Belladonna, we can see that there might not be as much of a divide between good and evil in public opinion of this plant as there were for monkshood or wolf spain.

But it's kind of funny, actually, to me, that the name that seems to have stuck with this plant for the longest is Belladonna, which describes one of the more innocuous. uses of the plant. And I know that you're all, you might know this already, but if in case you don't, you might, everyone might be dying to know.

I'm sure they're dying because I didn't know this until very recently. Okay. So, well, basically some writer in the 1500s described how Venetian women would put drops of belladonna tincture or juice or something into their eyes to make them appear deeper and darker and sexier by dilating the people.

Which we'll talk a lot more about. But like, what the heck? Yeah. People were like, you got to have that big old pupil. It's beautiful. Yeah, I didn't know I was missing something until you told me that. And that just solved so many. It's why you haven't yet won America's Next Top Model.

No. Your pupils aren't dilated enough. Yeah. And also women would apply it directly to their cheeks to give it a rosy glow, like the juice in the berries. It seems like the bad kind of rosy. Yeah. Yeah, we'll talk about it. All right.

But so that anyway, so because it was used for these reasons, it earned the name Bella Donna, which is Italian for Beautiful Woman. But before it was used as a beauty enhancer, it had much more sinister associations. Let's start back at the beginning. Atropa Belladonna, and I'm just going to call it Belladonna. Great. Okay. Was definitely known to the ancient Greeks, Roman, Scots, and probably many other cultures, since it is pretty widely distributed. Its genus name, Atropa, actually comes for.

from atropos, which is one of the three fates with a capital F. So you may remember these fates from Disney's Hercules. That's the only way I know. Yeah, I know, right? As they all shared an eyeball and one of them had scissors and would go clink, clink, clink. And then you're dead. And you're dead. Yeah.

So in Greek mythology, these three goddesses determine the fate of every mortal and God. So even Zeus feared. That's a powerful entity. Yeah. One of these goddesses would spin the threat of life. Another would measure it out and shape it. And the third would decide when it would be cut. Wow.

And this third goddess was known as atropos, the inflexible or immutable, or she who may not be turned aside. Wow. Yeah. I love it. And it's, yeah, it's pretty appropriate for these plants who are in the genus because a lot of them can cause you to not return to life. What a nice way of saying they'll kill you. The very least give you a bad couple of days. Borrowing from the ancient name of this plant, Atropa,

and its more recent, more innocent name Belladonna, Linnaeus decided to name the plant Atropa Belladonna. So it kind of has this both sides to it. Which is amazing. You know, you look at synonyms and the amount of revisions plants have gone through to have Linnaeus give it one and stick this whole time. And either people are really into that idea. Like, why would you want to harm such a name or just, good job, Linnaeus, with your taxonomic.

Yeah, it is a good name, though. It's a great name because it's like, okay, it tells you everything, not everything, but it tells you a lot about what you need to know about this plant. Right. Sort of this. Yeah. Right up front. It'll kill you.

It'll make you pretty. You'll make you pretty. I'm conflicted. Beauty is pain. Pain is beauty. while Beladonna was used in ancient times as a poison, such as for poison-tipped arrows, or by King Duncan of Scotland to poison an invading army of Dane, so Macbeth and company could slaughter them in their sleep. It was also used in rituals.

One of the more infamous of these rituals was the celebrations held by the followers of the cult of Dionysus, who is the Greek god of wine, fertility, yes, cheers to that. ritual madness, et cetera. The followers would apparently mix Beladonna into wine so they would have these crazy wild trips and lose some or all

of their sexual inhibitions. Wow. So it was like all of these like orgies, these like ancient Greek orgies is what sort of helped. Brought to you by brought you by Beladana. A side note

on that plant identification through ancient texts is a little difficult, right? They were actually just eating blueberries and they were like, no, no, I swear, I feel totally different. Let's do it. Well, okay. This is just who you are, David. I'm just blaming it on the blueberries. Yeah. There are a lot of different plants that can cause symptoms that are similar to this or like this or whatever. And so, yes, they may have been attributed to this plant, but it could have been hensbane. It could have been mandric. It could have been something else. So we don't know exactly. But definitely Belladonna was used and identified

and known about in ancient times. So it's a strong candidate. I just wanted to, you know, say that. But regardless of whether Belladonna was used in orgies or to poison your enemies or husband, all ancient writings about the plant are full of dire warnings about its extremely dangerous nature. Yeah. Always came with this like, warning, warning, don't grow it. Don't eat it. Don't eat it. don't plant it, just get it, get rid of it. And so there doesn't really seem to be a lot of healing done by the plant during this time. Okay. In the Middle Ages, Belladonna started to be called Deadly Nightshade, and its reputation for occult rituals grew.

Stories from this time say that the devil himself was responsible for cultivating and tending to the plant, and the only day he forgot to do this was Walpergus knocked. Which is also known as... It's my favorite holiday. It's also known as St. Walpergus Night. So St. Walpergus Night. I'm probably pronouncing this wrong, by the way. I was like, are you saying this as if we're supposed to know what it is?

I'm about to tell you. Of course. You know, Walpurgis Night. What did you do last year for that? What was your costume? It takes place on April 30th every year to commemorate St. Walpurgus. You all know, right? Yes.

Oh, yeah. Good old. Well, she was an 8th century abbess who battled pest, rabies, whooping cough, and witchcraft. Oh, I love her. Yo. Well, she did it all. Timely. Except the witchcraft thing.

Like, just let that be. I know. Right. Well, everyone dabbled. Both for and against. On this night, which is also witch's night, all the witches would gather to wait for the arrival of spring. And some of them would go to this mountain where they would await to meet. or lay with the devil.

So this is according to stories from the time. I want to go to this party. Yeah. Not the Greek-orgie one, this one. Well. He might end the same. Oh, no. Let me just finish this part here.

So according to these stories, the plant that the devil had forgotten to tend would turn into a beautiful but dangerous woman who would enchant you against your will. Why is it always a woman? Yeah. It's just so darn enchanting. Come on. Atropa Belladonna was also allegedly used by witches and wizards. Who would? So, Matt, if you're going to go to this party, just this is what you're going to have to do.

What happens when you jump the gun? Aaron just tented her hands in a very serious way. It was great. This has turned into a lecture. Yes. Matt, listen closely. Matt. Matthew.

My young man. Witches and wizards would rub a mix of this plant along with a few. others like hemlock and crazy other ones, onto their thighs and genitals before setting off on their broomsticks. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out when the sticks come out. Seriously.

Your thighs and genitals. Wait, your thighs is. Yeah, that's what holds you up. I get the genitals, actually. Because if you're going all in, the thighs. Maybe it'll just continually like renew. It's like an extra. Yeah.

Or maybe it's like splinters in the wood. They're like, no, we don't want. Maybe it protects you because it's an ointment. Right, right, right. Okay. I don't know. Perhaps it tingles. So the topical application of the plant might cause hallucinations and with the

sensation of flying being one of these potential hallucinations. So that kind of makes sense about, you know, broomsticks and flying and so on. But the witch's ointment was also supposed to be sexually stimulating. And that is what I want to say a little bit about. So let's take a minute to just take stock of where and when we are. We're in the, not right now, but I mean. In history, in the history section. It's like a bedroom.

Yeah, we're in my back bedroom of my house right now. Okay, but if we are celebrating St. Walpergus Night, Yes. In, let's say, the 14th to the 17th centuries were in Western Europe. Christianity is the prevailing religion in most areas. And so you were either a Christian on the side of good or you were evil, considered evil. Yeah. Or you practiced your religion in secret under the cover of night.

So witchcraft became this sort of scapegoat term that was used as an explanation for why something bad and unexplainable happened. And as an other, like, this is not like us. And so it also was used to put blame on whoever was viewed as deserving of blame, often an outsider or someone who simply did not conform. This was often women, especially, hence which, especially women who were outspoken or fierce, didn't act subservient, that type. The troublesome ones. The troublesome.

The kind of ones, you want to poison, right? Yeah, exactly, right? And so those women were to be feared and cast out. And so they were said to have sex with the devil or with demons. And the use of plants like Belladonna represented this aggressive female sexuality, which was the scariest thing of all to men during this time. So of course it became. It was like, oh, she's, I'm sorry, you're not acting like a woman should, you know. Witch?

Witch, she must be a witch. but that makes it one of my favorite plants too that it was this. Yeah, it makes me really have love for it. This is going to be the centerpiece of my Satan garden. Yes. I love it. We'll have a Satan garden.

We'll have a bonfire to commemorated or something. That sounds great. Well, anyway, so whether Atropa Belladonna was actually used during witchcraft or pagan rituals isn't really clear. But what is clear is that the plant is largely viewed as being on the side of evil during this time. but during the next couple of centuries,

the superstition surrounding the plant receded. So you've already heard about a non-witchcraft or non-poisoning example of the plant's use as a beauty enhancer in Italy during the 1500s. And in the 18th century, during the Age of Enlightenment, doctors began performing thoughtful, or at least systematic studies on the possible medicinal applications of plants such as Belladonna. And they found one and then another and then another until it seemed like they were kind of being just pulling these applications out of thin air.

One of the first and actually effective uses of Belladonna was to dilate the pupils, which was helpful in eye surgeries. But atropine, which is the extract or which is one of the active compounds, was also a common ingredient in suppositories, enemas, plasters, injections. That's actually, I mean, that's a terrible idea, just in terms of. of its mechanism of action. It's not going to do what you. Okay. So it was used on its own as a topical painkiller and was also combined with other poisonous plants, including the star of our first crossover with indefensive plants, aconite. Ooh. Nice. Together, Belladonna and Acconite were supposed to be excellent for a severe sore throat or

tonsillitis. I don't know if I'd go that route. I would say, no, it would actually make it worse. We'll talk about it. It's supposed to be. It was hailed as a great. cure. Great. And another thing that I have listed under my questionable uses bullet point is cigarettes with belladonna leaves soaked in opium tincture, which were prescribed up through the 1930s. I think like the opium just worked so good. It didn't matter what you were

slathering it on. I just like, why would you be prescribed that? I mean, would you just carry those around like on a smoke break? Like, those two effects would kind of counter each other a little bit. Yeah. I think because opium is going to like slow your metabolism like down. Yeah. And atropine is going to kind of do the opposite of that. So it would kind of just like counter the effects of opium a little bit. So you would be at less risk for like your like stopping breathing and things like that, I guess.

But it seems like a terrible idea not advocating it. Well, it's funny though because its cousin is nicotine, nicotiana. So tobacco. Oh. You know, they've seen family. And we smoke plenty of alcohol. Alcoholides when we're, we'll get to that, obviously. But yeah, I mean, it's like, do you want the stuff that'll kill you slowly or stuff that might kill you a little bit faster?

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Oh, okay. So maybe not as, maybe not as crazy as I initially thought when I read it. I mean, it still seems pretty crazy to me. Like, bad, bad idea for sure. Yeah.

Seems, seems like it. Stick to tobacco, children. So another of Belladonna's compounds, scopolomy. was used alongside morphine to induce twilight sleep for surgeries. And revisiting the dark side of the plant, it was also used as a truth serum on occasion. Still is. Really?

Yeah, there's a really interesting documentary about scopolamine in Mexico. Oh. Yeah, it can make you very open coercion without showing any outward symptoms that you're on things. Fascinating. Yeah. Is that Vice? I think Vice did it. Okay, yeah, I did watch that a while ago. Interesting.

Yeah, it's really... It's intense. It's terrifying. It is terrifying. Wow. I check that out. Yeah, we should watch that again. Also, before anyone gets any ideas about this plant being an awesome new hallucinogen that grows all over the world, Timothy Leary, who is the god of psychedelics, basically, who's this, you know, famous, everyone knows the name.

No. Go. Tell me who he is. I nodded as like, I was like, yeah, mm-hmm, tell me about it. Oh, okay. Well, Timothy Leary is, he was a Harvard researcher who studied the effects of psychedelics. people. He basically all and he tested them himself like all all kinds. He was the turn on tune in drop out was like his thing. He was very it was the time of like the cultural revolution in the US in the 1960s and

70s. He was a big part of that. Okay. So anyway, he knew psychedelics for sure. Yeah. And he was he allegedly said about Belladonna that he had never heard of a good Belladonna trip. That it was all terrifying and horrible and just left you feeling awful. Not surprised. Not recommended. Yeah. The active components of Belladonna, so mainly atropine and scopolamine, were discovered in the early 1800s, which meant that the compounds could be isolated to include in the many

medications that I mentioned, and also that it could be detected in cases of suspected murder. That's right. So it turns out that Belladonna was not an uncommon way. to off your spouse or neighbor or patient. Some did it with a plant itself, such as a woman who tossed in 20 or so belladonna berries into her husband's blueberry bowl in an attempt to sedate him as he was raging out against the entire family. And in any case, he was more than sedated.

He was... He died? He died. Others used the isolated compound atropine, which was pretty much only accessible at a certain point to physicians and nurses. And have either of you ever heard of the serial killer named Marie Generey or Generette? No. Maybe?

She was a Swiss nurse who in 1868 was convicted of murdering six of her patients and attempting to poison two more with atropine. Turns out she had been taking atropine for years and had developed a tolerance for it, so she had to fake an eye condition to get more, which reminds me of... the Princess Bride when I've developed a resistance to Iacame powder. I didn't know that you could actually do that to different poisons and somebody actually did that. So, kind of funny. But with that fresh prescription, she began giving it to her patients, but she was eventually

caught red-handed. And then there's the more recent case of the scientists and lecturer of biologists, I think, in Scotland, who in 1994 attempted to poison his wife by serving her. her a gin and tonic with a little something extra. After taking a few sips, she started to feel really sick, so he called the general practitioner who had gone home for the evening, and he left a message. He didn't bother calling emergency services, even though she was feeling deathly ill. The message got sent to emergency services anyway, and they showed up where they diagnosed her as having symptoms of atropine poisoning. It turned out that this dude had put atrope

And at a bunch of bottles of tonic at a grocery store and then returned home with one. So he put them in tonic and bottles of tonic water at the grocery store. What? Why? It's a terrible plan. Seven other people around the area had also come down with a strange case of atropine poisoning after drinking tonic water from the same grocery store. Huh.

So on first glance, it seemed like his wife was just another victim. Oh. Yeah. Kind of smart. It's like, I don't care if multiple people die. I just don't want to get caught for... Well, the thing is, in the other bottles, it was a lower concentration of atropine,

but in his wife's tonic bottle or, like, his wife's drink, it was much higher. So he was definitely making an effort. It's interesting that people can show up, though, and see it and go, oh, this looks like atropine poisoning. It's enough of a thing. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Cool.

Yeah. I keep rolling on your thing a little bit. This is why I can't wait. I'm almost done, don't worry. Yeah, so this was his plan all along just to be, oh, this is a random poisoning. And he also was having an affair with this younger woman that he was trying to run off with. Anyway, so he was convicted, sent to jail, served 12 years. He's out, obviously.

And after his release, he was hired as a professor of philosophy and medical ethics. What? I'm sorry. Why did they let him out? No. murder doesn't get you very far, I guess, in the court system. Aye. So on that note, Erin, will you tell us what it would be like to be poisoned by Bella Donna?

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Yes. Okay. So to tell you about the effects of Bella Donna, we're going to take a step back so I can tell you about the nervous system. Oh, okay. Giddy. She's not joking. Physically. Giddy.

Okay. So your nervous system, if you're unaware, has two major parts to it. The first is your somatic nervous system, which is like your muscles in your arms and your legs, like what you might think of as your nervous system. It's like your sensory nerves and you're bending your arm, all that stuff.

But then there's your autonomic nervous system. And that's the part that you might not think about because it mostly controls stuff that you're unaware of, like your digestion and sweating. Maybe you're aware of sweating. I don't know. I'm always aware of sweating. Good effects. Never enough to control it.

So the autonomic nervous system, it controls all of that kind of stuff in your body. Digestion, salivation, blah, blah, blah. Okay. And the autonomic nervous system has two major divisions, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. So don't, like, don't fade on me, guys. It's going to be, it's going to get really fun. Like, we're going to talk about, like, crazy things happening. We're in an autonomic nervous system. We're in the autonomic. And we've got some sympathetic and unsympathetic wink. Just kidding. Exactly. So the sympathetic nervous system basically think of it as fighter flight. Okay. So everybody knows fighter flight, right? So if you think about what happens in your body physiologically, if you were to get into a situation

where you would need that fighter flight response. Murder outside my window. Exactly. A clown in a maze. All of those things. Okay. So think of out and tell me you guys what kinds of things are going to be happening in your body in that situation. Go. Sweat, heart rate. Blood vessel dilation. All of these things are great. Pea my pants.

Okay, no, you're actually not going to be your pants. I'll tell you why. Maybe that's my fights. Or just you. Okay, so absolutely your heart rate is going to increase, right? Your heart rate is going to increase. It's going to beat harder and it's going to be faster. And that's because you need to get that blood to your body, right, to your arms and your legs so that you can run away.

Your, you said your blood vessels are going to dilate. Absolutely. All of the blood vessels that go to your skeletal muscles are going to dilate. And all the ones that go to your internal organs are going to constrict. Is that why I get nauseous if I eat and run? Yeah, probably. Yeah. I don't do that a lot, by the way.

Because, like, your stomach is like, we don't need this right now, right? You don't need to digest the sandwich that you just ate because you need to focus on running. away from a murderer. So, awesome. Sweating is probably going to happen after the fact, right? So it'll actually be probably, I mean, sweating is a complicated one, so let's ignore it. What about hearing the blood in my ears? Yeah, so that's just because your heart is pumping so hard and so fast, right?

So your heart is, like, going crazy, and so you can hear the blood rushing to your ears. You're not going to pee your pants until after. the threat is gone. Here's why. Challenge accepted. All of your, all of the smooth muscles around your GI tract and your bladder are actually going to relax because you don't need digestion right now, right? No peristalysis.

No perisalysis. Oh. But all of your sphincters are going to contract. So that's why you poop yourself? You're not going to poop yourself. All of your poop is going to be held right in. all of your pee is going to be held in real tight. Because the last thing that you need when you're confronted with something is to pee.

It could be that like immediately upon seeing something, you could like things could void before they contract or what happens often. I'm a toothpaste in the tube. Oh, I'm sorry I said that. What happens often and what my high school biology teacher actually told us about, he was not a great human, but he was a great biology teacher. he said that what he used to do was like at Knott's Berry Farm or whatever when you have those haunted scary houses he worked at one of those in high school

or something like that and he said that he would scare people right in front of the restroom because then they like need to pee really bad and so then it would stimulate their sympathetic response really fast but then they would quickly realize that they don't need it and then the parasympathetics would take over and then it would release everything

and they'd pee themselves right in front of it. Oh my. Oh, wow. That is power that we probably should not have just given to the world. But if I were a high school student working at a corn scary maze or whatever, absolutely I would do that. If I just wanted to make my friends pee. Yes. Hearing that story is part of what made me interested in biology, you know? It's like, whoa. Oh, man. See, I just did it for the fun sheer of the scare. Okay. So, anyways, all the more because of that. Okay. So, anyways, all of that. of that, all of those reactions, that's your sympathetic response. So fight or flight, sympathetic. That's what's happening when you're under serious duress, okay? Fight or flight, anxiety attack,

etc. What about the rest of the time? The rest of the time, your parasympathetic nervous system is your friend. This system is your rest and digest, okay? Feed and breed. Yeah, no one's grosser because like breed. But yes, you could say that too. So you can think of the actions of the parasympathetic nervous system as basically almost exactly the opposite of the actions of the sympathetic nervous system. You're peeing all the time. Exactly. So if your sympathetic nervous system is increasing your heart rate, your parasympathetic is slowing it down. If your sympathetic is blocking parastasis and digestion, then your parasympathetic is promoting it.

If the sympathetic is constricting your sphincters, then the parasympathetic is letting them fly. Right? Yeah. Floodgates. Exactly. Okay. So the parasympathetic nervous systems actions are mediated by two things, basically. A neurotransmitter that's called acetylcholine, which is like a little molecule that's released at the end of a nerve.

And the receptor where acetylcholine binds. Okay. And that receptor is called a muscarinic receptor. Whoa. Muscarinic like a muscle. Think of it that way. A muscle receptor. Sure.

Even though it's not on muscles. These are the little jumps in between the nerves? Exactly. Right. Yeah. Okay. These two divisions of your autonomic nervous system, parasympathetic, rest and digest, sympathetic,

fight or flight, they work together. And most of the time, in most organ systems, it's your parasympathetic that's kind of in control, right? Because you're not most of the time under serious, like, fighter flight stimulation. I hope not. But if you were to block

the sympathetic nervous system, then the parasympathetic would be even more pronounced. So your heart rate would go down even more, etc. Right? If you were to block the sympathetic response.

And if you were to block the parasympathetic, then your sympathetic would take over. So both of these things are acting kind of all the time. It's just a matter of which one is in control. and taking over.

Makes sense? Yeah. Cool. Now you're an expert on the nervous system. Congratulations, everyone. Just call me. So why did I spend so much time talking you through how the nervous system works? I have a feeling it has to do with Bella Donna?

You're just a smart. Erin, did you like, do you have a doctorate or something? Because you're so smart. I'm not even here. I'm so glad you mentioned it. Okay. Doctor, doctor. You're right.

So it turns out that the compounds in Belladonna that make it so dangerous directly affect your parasympathetic nervous system. Oh, no. Specifically, they are what's called a muscarinic receptor antagonist, which is a fancy mouthful of a word that basically means it blocks the effects of the parasympathetic system. So it's blocking rest and digest, which means what system takes over? Sympathetic. Right. Fight or flight. Exactly.

Uh-oh. Right. That's terrifying. It's, yeah. And so those compounds, which you mentioned already, are atropine, scopolamine, and there's another one called hyiomene or daturine, whatever. Atropine and scopalamine are the most important. Who cares about those other ones?

Not me. So having atropine or scopolamine in your system basically means that your sympathetic nervous system, the one that makes you freak out, have anxiety, fight or flight is now unopposed and can take over the workings of your body. So you guys tell me what kind of symptoms are we going to see? Dilated pupils. Yeah. Lots of heavy breathing. Yeah. Heart rate really going fast. Exactly. So your heart rate's going to increase like crazy. No more peeing. No more peeing, right? All your sphincters are going to be shut up real tight so it can cause constipation and it can cause urinary incontinence. Your pupils are going to dilate and that's because if you think about in a fight or flight situation,

you need to be able to get as much light into your eyes as possible to like see what's going on. Oh, snap. Yeah. But if you're in a rest and digest, your eyes are like, it's cool, like we'll just be here, chill. Yeah, yeah. Right. It also, what it also affects is that your parasympathetic nervous system is what controls the near far focus of your eyes, which is called accommodation. Whoa. And so blocking the parasympathetic effect doesn't allow you to accommodate. So it can actually cause blurry vision in addition to this pupillary dilation. Oh. So that was another thing that women who used it too much in their eyes would go blind or lose the ability to see very well.

Absolutely. Yeah, because you lose the ability to accommodate. Dang. Yeah, right? It's fun. So, yeah, that's sort of the main effects of atropine. There's actually, there are also our central nervous system effects, which we didn't necessarily talk about the central nervous system effects of your parasympathetic or sympathetic nervous

system. But because atropine can cross your blood brain barrier, it can also affect your brain, which is why it can cause hallucinations, confusion, all kinds of crazy things. There's actually a really funny little poem. I don't know. Saying. Can I guess what it is? Yeah, do it.

Is it hot as a hair, blind as a bat, dry as a bone, red as a beat, and mad as a hen? Matt is a hatter, actually. Oh. Matt is a hatter, because hens are not really that crazy, but hatters, people who made hats. You played Zelda? Hens are crazy. Hens are crazy. But also the hatter is really crazy.

I guess the mask maker. Yeah. But yes, that's exactly the same. Yes. And what's cool is that we kind of went through already all of those specific things, right? You're blind as a bat because your pupils are dilated and you've lost accommodation. You're red as a beat because all of your blood vessels, like to your skin and your muscles are now dilated. So you've got tons of blood rushing to your skin, which makes you red and also hot as a hair.

And you're dry as a bone because your parasympathetic nervous system is what causes salivary secretion. So now you have no saliva, which is also why I don't think it would be a good treatment for sore throat, because it actually can cause a very sore throat atropine because you have no saliva. Do you want to be drier? And Matt is a hatter because it crosses the blood brain barrier and can cause hallucinations and confusion. Wow. So that just opened up a whole, that's why I love coming here because it takes all these cool things about the plants and just puts it into context. It's so cool. So, cool.

So atropine is the most potent of these compounds. But it actually, it still today is used sometimes medically. So we use it in emergency situations to treat bradycardia or a very, very low heart rate because it's going to end up stimulating your heart rate. I don't know how often it's actually used for real, but I do know that it's like, if you look at a crash cart at a hospital, they do have atropine on hand. So there you go. Wow.

It also can be used in the case of organophosphate insecticide poisoning because this is really cool and I get into it because entomology. But organophosphates act kind of on the same receptors and they cause them to be constitutionally active. And so this can kind of help reverse those effects, but only on the muscarinic receptors. This is probably too much. Anyways, it can be used to treat organophosphate insecticide poisoning. I think it's cool. So, I mean, we're here in a very rural area. Right.

It's a very real thing that somebody could be poisoned by that. It's not going to help. Like, it'll basically, it's just symptomatic relief for that. Sure. Just getting you to the hospital to get you detoxed proper. Exactly. Scopolamine is actually still used as a treatment for sea sickness or motion sickness. They give it as a transdermin.

transdermal patch because it also can cross a blood brain barrier so can help with nausea and things like that. And treatment of atropine overdose is with a drug called fysostigmine, which basically just helps that so the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine that I mentioned, the drugs that you treat atropine with just increase the amount of that available so that you can kind of overcome the effects of atropine. So it doesn't reverse atropine necessarily. It just helps you sort of overcome the effects so that you can then get better faster. Healing people is a bizarre sport. Yeah, dude. Tell me about it. So yeah, I have some info on how much it might take to kill you. You guys want to know?

Yeah, yeah. Not much. Just for a friend. Just for a friend. Just for fun. So atropine specifically was the one that I found the most information about. Atropine can basically start incapacitating people at about 10 to 20 milligrams dosage. And I wanted to ask you, Matt, and maybe I'll talk about this because I couldn't find, probably could have if I looked harder, how many milligrams of atropine are in like a berry or a plant? Shouldn't ask me that because I do not know. I don't know either. I read anecdotally that like some children could die after eating a handful, like a few berries. I saw that it could be between like 0.5 and 1.2 percent, but I don't know how many milligrams that equates to. Let's rewind. I do know an answer to that, which is the safe bet, but it's, it varies from plant to plant, honestly, depending on how it's growing to.

So there's, to give a standard would be rough. But there is, yeah. So anyways, 10 to 20 milligrams can incapacitate you. It could probably kill a child. But the lethal dose for an adult human is usually between 90 and 130 milligrams. of pure atropine. So again, not sure exactly how many berries, but we're not advocating that you kill anybody with atropine.

So let's not even get into it. Just don't. Don't do it. Just don't touch the plant. Yeah. If you survive, so if your dose is not lethal, which it's obviously not always lethal, symptoms generally, like the onset is pretty quick

within like an hour or a couple of hours, but they do get better within like three to four days. And then there really isn't, any permanent loss of function. Okay. Provided you're not dropping it in your eyes. Exactly. Yeah.

But yeah, there's also huge individual variation in your susceptibility to atropine, which so it totally makes sense that people could become used to it because it basically is just blocking this specific receptor. So what your body will do is just make more receptors. Okay. So if you use it all the time, it's the same thing with opiates. Oh, so yeah. Your body, like that's why you go from.

like a low dose to like straight up heroin, right? It's because you, your body makes more receptors and then it becomes less effective and then you need a stronger dose. Yeah. So, yeah. Amazing. That puts a lot of things into context here. Good.

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Seems reasonable. No, but this one actually took me down a really fun rabbit hole, which I always appreciate because it forces me to take a different perspective on things to ask different questions. And, and like just the kinds of questions that I had to ask to get to the answer to this, it was fun. and I didn't I hope my advisor doesn't listen to this Let's put it that way It was only a few days No, it's fine

I didn't I don't I know how to balance my time darned All right So All right So many names for this plant Include the word nightshade

And did you know There's a whole nightshade family I did for my mom You did? Awesome Anyone who gardens To any sort of degree Probably comes across

that word at some point or another because a lot of our favorite fruits and tubers, or I guess we call them vegetables, they're fruits and tubers. Fruits and tubers. Fruits and tubers come from this family. So Deadly Nightshade is a cousin of tomatoes, potatoes, aborigines, and or eggplant. Aborigines, you're so fancy. Tomatios. Yeah. It's a big family. A lot is going on, But a lot of the same toxic compounds are shared by this family, which is why you don't eat raw potatoes. You do not eat unripe or literally any other part of the tomato plant. Yeah. They're well defended to a large degree.

Oh, it really makes sense that you don't eat raw potatoes because that's the root, and the root generally has the most of the compounds. They're well defended because that's the thing that's getting them through to next year. And this family is Solonacea? Solenacea. Yes. So it's native to Europe and parts of North Africa as well as Western Asia. So this is like a nice Eurasian. It shares that with a lot of other plants that have been found useful just because of history of human settlement and cultivation. But it has been naturalized and introduced throughout the world. I don't think it's terribly weedy. In fact, most of what I read says it's actually kind of hard to cultivate. It can be picky, which is interesting. But it is a plant of disturbance. It likes edges. Nothing too sunny, nothing too shaded, a little bit more new. nutrients in the soil. So this makes sense that it would be involved in human history. You think humans leave a mark on the landscape, even paleolithic humans were disturbing the landscape, right? And certain plants probably followed them around whenever they did that. Inevitably, you see a plant enough. You're going to experiment with it a little bit you'd expect, right? So this probably came into play way earlier than people were even keeping records of it. Which is fascinating because I always think about all of the work that must go into. playing with and experimenting with plants to do the ages, right? But if certain ones are just kind of sticking around human settlements, yeah, of course we're

going to come into contact with them. It's not a very long-lived plant, which I think is pretty interesting. It can live up to 48 years in the wild, which really tells you it's at home in these transitional environments. It gets done what it needs to get done in a short amount of time, makes the best use of its time. And what better way to optimize your life, your short life on this planet, than to protect yourself with some nasty, nasty chemicals.

Yeah, makes sense, yeah. Plants have two options, really, chemical and physical. And physical is very costly, right? It takes a lot of energy and carbon to produce spines, thorns, needles, those sorts of things. Chemicals, if you grow in a nutrient-rich area, especially one with high in nitrogen, you can make alkaloids really easily. And so that is probably one of the main selective pressures that drove this plant to be just horrendous for you.

Right? And so it's also very fleshy. It's not something that guards itself with woody tissues. Again, that's costly. They don't live very long. They're perennial. They die back every year. Again, more emphasis for that selection pressure for toxic compounds. Cool. Yeah. It's fun to think about this because, you know, they can't get up and run away. So poison whatever, whatever's chewing on you, you want to make sure it either doesn't do that again or has no opportunity to do that again. Right. So I've heard botanists call this the most, one of the most toxic plants in the Western Hemisphere. Wow. I've also heard Botanis say it's one of the most toxic plants in the Eastern Hemisphere. So go figure. So one plus one.

Whatever hemisphere you find yourself on. Avoid it. But again, thinking about all of the plants in the nightshade family, it's a lot of these chemicals are not unique to deadly nightshade. It's just really good at it and happens to hang around people very often. and like sort of these calcareous rocks, so it does really well in Europe, which might explain some of the more, you know, Mediterranean European themed anecdotes being kind of predominant there, right?

Yeah, yeah. And like I said, it's kind of fleshy, which is kind of cool. It's a beautiful plant. I wish I didn't have a picture, all the ones in my book. They don't recommend growing it very often, so it doesn't show up in a lot of the, like, beautiful gardening illustrations, but it is a beautiful plant.

people hear it so the issue with common names is sometimes they can apply to a lot of different plants and you want to make sure that if someone serves you a nightshade if it happens to share one with a less toxic one the good news is is most of them that are called nightshade don't mess with them but people confuse it with another one bittersweet nightshade which is a vine has tiny little purple flowers and it looks like a yellow traffic cone coming down from the bottom very reminiscent of a tomato flower right oh okay Belladana looks nothing like that. It's actually very different for this family. It's not buzz pollinated, which is what tomatoes and aubergines are.

Does buzz mean bee? Yes. Oh, that's so cute. So buzz pollination is really cool where the bees come and they land on the cone and they have to vibrate at a specific frequency to release the pollen. They're in these little chambers. And so there's plants that are at like a C sharp. There's plants that are either like an E minor, that sort of thing. I don't know what tomatoes are.

They might be like in a C. But it's really fun to watch because if you sit, you'll watch and you'll see. And you'll see it like spray down onto them. Belladonna does not do that. It's got these beautiful sort of burgundy maroon bell-shaped flowers that come down, freely pollinated by a variety of larger insects. Very pretty plant, though. I mean, if it's something that you're aware of, cautious around, respectful of,

it would make an actual very interesting addition to any garden. Like a beautiful centerpiece to your Satan garden, for example. They can get pretty impressive in height. 6.6 feet is the tallest plant. Whoa. Which is really impressive for an herbaceous plant And that probably, you know, packs some potency. Oh my God, yeah.

Can you imagine? And the fruits themselves, the ones that probably get the most attention Despite the whole plant being pretty awful for you Is a berry. It's an actual berry, just like tomatoes. Tomatoes are berries. Eggplants are berries, right? It's a fleshy, pulpy fruit with lots and lots of seeds in there.

So the berries start green and ripen to black. And they do have, are said to have a sweet taste to them. So a lot of children make very bad mistakes because they don't, it's not like you're eating something bitter. They eat a few and then they're dead. And would it, would it numb your tongue or anything even to give you an indication of like, you know how you, that's like. No, so because it doesn't.

So the muscarinic receptors are only in the parismpathetic nervous system, not the somatic nervous system, which is your sensory and muscles. So it would have to be once you ingest it and it would be started to digest before it took effect? Well, yeah, and it wouldn't affect any sensory nerves or anything like that. So you wouldn't have any numbness, you wouldn't have any tingling, you wouldn't have any muscle spasms because it's not affecting any of that stuff. So the first symptoms that you'd probably have would be things like dry mouth. Yeah, stuff like that. Flushing, fever. That's one of the first ones. Yeah. So as we discussed, not all parts of the plan are equally toxic.

Plants are going to prioritize certain organs over others, mainly their roots and their reproductive structures. And there's kind of a descending level of toxicity accordingly. The roots have the most. Upwards of 1.3% of them

is made up of toxic compounds. Shoot. There's a whole suite, which I'll get to. Leaves is 1.2%. Stocks, so stems, 0.65%. Flowers, 0.6%. And berries, oddly enough, 0.7%. And the seeds are only 0.4%.

That also makes sense. So berries, you don't want anything that shouldn't be eating them to eat them, but you also need to eventually get your seeds out into the environment, right? So don't load them with toxic things. I also found out, interestingly enough, that these toxins are expressed in everything from the nectar to the pollen as well. And they're not alone in that. A lot of plants have toxic nectar. I have heard about people becoming sick or maybe dying after eating honey. Mad honey. You are from Appalachian. you would deal with that actually so anytime they say don't honey your honey bees next to rhododendrons because rhododendrons have a pretty nasty toxin that builds up in the honey and you had mentioned feeding it to soldiers to knock them out um i think it was the romans don't quote me on this would leave in fact hives with mad honey they would feed these bees on rhododendron and leave them on the routes of the other soldiers wait till they gorge themselves on it and then just come in and slay them as They were on the ground all nerved out.

We're going to quote you on that. Yeah, quote me on that. Yeah, that's true. I don't know if it's the Greeks of the Rome is like it's one of those two. We're doing it. Probably both. Yeah, I believe it. Right, but the interesting thing is a lot of organisms can get away with eating these plants, right?

Yeah. It's very confusing to have something so terribly toxic to something like you and I, but seeing a little bird go up and go, no problems, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that really set me down this rabbit hole because I, know nothing about any sort of metabolic process that would be able to cope with this. You brought it up last time we talked.

I think it was on my podcast about how insects kind of overcome this with some channelization and stuff. But it's fascinating because these are small, brightly colored berries, birds. Birds are number one, the seed disperser of this plant. So I went, huh, what's going on there? And it's not just atropine that they're producing, right? They're also producing compounds like hyocyan, scopolamine, and solanine. which a lot of them others.

So there's a lot of stuff to deal with there, which tells me there's a lot of things that it doesn't want eating it, but whatever has to deal with that has to cope with that. So I went about trying to figure out what it is about birds that lets them deal with this on any great degree. And there's a lot of really fascinating ecology here. Interest in how animals cope with toxic plants actually comes up way more than I realized. And it comes up from the food industry, right? Because if an animal can eat a lot of something or eat something and doesn't immediately,

die from it, can it build up in that animal? And then when we consume the byproducts of that animal, can that hurt us? So famously, yeah, Mercury and fish. Lincoln's mother was said to be killed by milk sickness, which is actually from drinking the milk of cows that have been feeding on a certain type of plant that grows like crazy around here. Oh. White snake root.

Yes, I've heard of that. Okay. So this is a big concern that we've known about for a very long time, and it comes up quite a bit. So there's a lot of unfortunate experiments where they just feed toxic things to animals and see what happens. Wow. So in searching for how birds are able to cope with eating these berries, I found a thing about tropane alkaloids and birds, which that's the suite of compounds that nightshades are producing. They're called tropane alkaloids and alkaloids are across the board very bioactive molecules, very rich in nitrogen.

And so they wanted to know what was going to happen because obviously, again, they've observed that a lot of animals can eat this stuff. Larger animals, of course, just because it takes a lot to bring down a cow versus a medium-sized human. But birds are pretty small, even if it's a hen. And so they noticed birds were eating these. They're dispersed by birds. What's going on here? Well, they took a bunch of different kinds of hens, which I realized that there are mostly hens that are like egg producers and ones that are meat producers. and they just fed them varying levels of plant materials containing that class of compounds,

which I think they used deterra, which deuteramine was one of the ones you mentioned. They're named after these plants, which is great. But they fed them regardless. It's the same compound. They're just trying to see what concentrations does it affect. And it turns out that poultry specifically, so chickens, these gulliforms, appear to possess an atropine hydroxylase-like enzyme that inactivates tropane alkaloids. What? Yeah.

That's so cool. Blue my mind. So, yes, they're bringing them in. They do affect them at increasing doses, but they can eat a lot more than you would expect for an animal that size. Aaron's mind is blown. My mind is fully blown. Because, I mean, that must, like, that has to mean that birds, at least poultry, that they have evolved with exposure to these

compounds, like, from the beginning. Right. So I'm going to test you, what are chickens as, like, a type of class of birds? Oh, no. I don't. What do chickens fall under? They're not peseriformis. No.

They're... Which is the small little perchy birds. Yeah, but that's, like, the most specious. It's the only one I can think of right now. They're galliformis. Right, which is peasants. Nice job. I have no idea where that came from.

Air 5s. I'm across the room. Just double that noise up. Yeah, there we go. So they are in the same group as pheasants. And in the wild, pheasants are said to be the most numerous bird seen feeding on this plant. So at some point in the lineage of the pheasants,

they realized that there's a group of delicious berries out there. Evolutionarily speaking, they have a history dealing with this. Yeah. Right? Oh my God, that is cool. I never expected to track down that kind of connection out of a medical, agro journal. That was really cool to find that. Oh, my God.

But it gets even better. Oh, my God. So again, it still affects them. It's not going to kill them outright. Right. The more they're eating, the worst it's going to get. They're just able to basically break down the atropine or the alkaloid in their body. Inactivated to some extent, right?

So feeding on higher amounts or feeding for longer increased the chances of mild diarrhea, which is interesting going back to what you said about it actually shutting it down, but it may not be atropied. It might be one of the other classes of these compounds, but it actually gave the birds mild diarrhea. Just a little bit. From a plant's perspective, do you want seeds sitting in a gut for a very long time, or do you want them to get removed from their saying, move to distance and pooped out? Stop it right now.

That is the coolest thing. So not only do you have birds that can eat your berries, give them the poops. And you've pretty much ensured that they get just far enough away to make your seeds find a new spot full of nitrogen-rich poop to grow in. You guys, are you hearing this because... I want to do another PhD. Don't do it. But like, what the heck? That is...

Plants are fascinating. Plants are fascinating. I feel so sad for my life that I lived with a plant blindness for so long. Thank God for you, Matt. Caring it with Belladonna, which is kind of ironic. But it's so interesting. We're dilating our eyes. And our minds.

And our minds. So long-term exposure, elevated exposure gives the birds the case of the diaries. But breeding frequency was not affected. and the effects tended to be transient only for the duration of the study and did not appear to affect their health in the long run whatsoever. And to be honest with you, this plant is not numerous enough on the landscape to ever become an issue for any wild bird to begin with. So being relatively uncommon is actually beneficial.

Wow. They find some food. It's a quick, easy meal. They eat it, gives them a little diarrhea. They poop the seeds out. The plant's happy. The bird's happy. No one's worse for the wear.

If this plant were to become common and birds were to gorge themselves on it, you might be hearing a different evolutionary story. Wow. So atropa, like I mentioned, also has the toxic pollen and the toxic nectar, which brings up a lot of questions about pollination. So what they found was that the alkaloid content in both the nectar and the pollen is significantly higher than it is in other species investigated, which is interesting. So atropa is really expressing a lot of these in weird tissues. but the selective selection hypothesis is only part of that alkaloid spectrum is being produced. So they don't think it's getting the full complement of that chemical cocktail, but on some level that the plant just can't help produce it. But it could also help protect from potential pollen thieves, nectar thieves, things that want to eat their pollen.

So it's this tradeoff, right? There's no one-size-fits-all solution. You can't be the most beneficial thing across the board. So, you know, okay, you heard a few pollinators here and there. You hurt your seed dispersers temporarily, but it's working. Yeah, it's working. So, yeah, it's this idea that not everything in evolution should be thought of as hierarchical or being better than the other. It's just if it works, it works, right?

It just can't be less beneficial than it is beneficial. Right. I think the most important thing to remember here is at the end of the day, it's a matter of variation within a species when it comes to toxicity. and you had mentioned someone had said there has been no case of a good trip on Belladonna but plenty of other members of this family are toyed around with and used to one degree or another for recreational purposes

and plants are very plastic organisms again because they can't get up and move so keep in mind that across the board the dose is going to depend on where it's growing, how it's growing, what conditions the soil are like, how much light it was getting, all of those things and to pick up one berry and give it to someone and say, oh, that was fine, you could pick up the next berry,

and that would be the last berry anyone ever ate. So in recreating with any of these in any way, yeah, don't eat it. But it is interesting to mention that even if you're trying to grow these plants, there's nothing saying you can't try to grow these in your garden, you know, be cautious, right? Right. And there's a reason you don't see it being sold very often. Right.

Grow at your own risk. Yeah. It's a fascinating plant, though. And I'm really happy this was the one we jumped on. Oh, my gosh, me too. I feel like we picked for our first two poison casts, like two of the coolest. I mean, that's the thing, though. Every time I feel like you go digging, it becomes this amazing fun story.

Yeah. Yeah. So thank you. It's so cool. It is. Oh, my gosh. That was the most fun. Matt, thank you so much.

Yes. Thank you both so much for having me. And thanks everybody for listening. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it as much as we did. Please follow us on all the social medias. Yep, where this podcast will kill you on Facebook and Instagram and TPWKY on Twitter. And check us out on our website. This podcast will kill you.com.

On our website, you'll find all of these sources that we use for each episode, the books and the articles that we use for research if you'd like to read. And what about them drink mixes? Also those. Bingo. Those will be on our... Instagram, our Facebook, our Twitter, except.

Like, if you follow us, you'll see our recipes. And thank you to Bloodmobile, who provided the music for this episode in all of our episodes. Yep. Love you. And finally, wash your hands. And don't eat strange berries. Yeah.

This is just a plug for plant idea. It can help save your life. Why have I asked my age-fat guy I found on Angie.com to change my grandpa's trachea tube? Because I was so amazed by how quickly he replaced our air ducts. I knew I could trust him to change Pop-Pub's tube while I was on vacation. Make a quick, young man. Aw, see, Pop-P trusts you. I think we should call it, doctor.

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