Editing Datura stramonium (section)

==Uses==
===Traditional medicine===
[[File:Datura str tat5.JPG|''D. stramonium'' var. ''tatula'', flower (front)|thumb|right]]

One of the primary active agents in ''Datura'' is [[atropine]], which has been used in [[traditional medicine]] and for recreation over centuries.<ref name=cabi/><ref name=Glatstein/> The leaves are generally smoked, either in a cigarette or a pipe.

During the late 18th century, James Anderson, the English Physician General of the [[East India Company]], learned of the practice and popularized it in Europe.<ref>{{cite book |author=Barceloux, Donald G. |chapter=Cáscara |title=Medical Toxicology of Natural Substances: Foods, Fungi, Medicinal Herbs, Plants, and Venomous Animals |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-118-38276-9 |page=1877 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aTTBPedwFfAC&pg=PT1877}}</ref><ref name="Pennachio-2010-p6">{{Cite book |author=Pennachio, Marcello |title=Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke: Its Ethnobotany As Hallucinogen, Perfume, Incense, and Medicine |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-537001-0 |page=6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pr9fgQIr5LkC&pg=PA6 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> The Chinese also used it as a form of [[anesthesia]] during surgery.<ref name="Nellis-1997-p238">{{Cite book|author=Nellis, David W. |title=Poisonous Plants and Animals of Florida and the Caribbean |publisher=Pineapple Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-1-56164-111-6 |page=238 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C8xJE2NfQpIC&pg=PA238}}</ref>

===Early folk medicine===
[[John Gerard]]'s ''Herball'' (1597) states,<ref name="maud-desc" />
{{Blockquote|[T]he juice of Thornapple, boiled with hog's grease, cureth all inflammations whatsoever, all manner of burnings and scaldings, as well of fire, water, boiling lead, gunpowder, as that which comes by lightning and that in very short time, as myself have found in daily practice, to my great credit and profit.|sign=|source=}}
[[William Lewis (scientist)|William Lewis]] reported, in the late 18th century, that the juice could be made into "a very powerful remedy in various convulsive and spasmodic disorders, epilepsy and mania," and was also "found to give ease in external inflammations and [[haemorrhoids]]".<ref>[[William Lewis (scientist)|William Lewis]], [https://chestofbooks.com/health/materia-medica-drugs/Experimental-History-Materia-Medica/Stramonium.html "An Experimental History Of The Materia Medica: Stramonium"]</ref>

Henry Hyde Salter discusses ''D. stramonium'' as a treatment for [[asthma]] in his 19th-century work ''On Asthma: its Pathology and Treatment''. Smoking of herbs, including ''D. stramonium'', was thought to provide relief for [[asthma]]tics since [[Ancient History|antiquity]] and into the early 20th century.<ref name="von MutiusDrazen2012">{{cite journal|last1=von Mutius|first1=Erika|last2=Drazen|first2=Jeffrey M.|title=A Patient with Asthma Seeks Medical Advice in 1828, 1928, and 2012|journal=New England Journal of Medicine|volume=366|issue=9|year=2012|pages=827–834|issn=0028-4793|doi=10.1056/NEJMra1102783|pmid=22375974|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="Jackson2011" /> The  use of smoking ''D. stramonium'' to treat asthma would later wane following new understandings of [[asthma]] as an allergic inflammatory reaction, and developments in pharmacology that provided more effective treatments.<ref name="Jackson2011">{{cite journal|last1=Jackson|first1=Mark|title="Divine Stramonium": The Rise and Fall of Smoking for Asthma|journal=Medical History|volume=54|issue=2|year=2011|pages=171–194|issn=0025-7273|doi=10.1017/S0025727300000235|pmid=20357985|pmc=2844275|doi-access=free}}</ref>

===Spiritualism and the occult===
[[File:Datura stramonium Bieluń dziędzierzawa Seed 01.jpg|thumb|right|Seed capsule, showing [[dehiscence (botany)|dehiscence]] of the four valves to release seeds]]

Across the Americas, indigenous peoples, such as the [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]], [[Aztecs]], [[Navajo]], [[Cherokee]], [[Luiseño]] and the indigenous peoples of [[Marie-Galante]] used this plant or other ''Datura'' species in sacred ceremonies for its hallucinogenic properties.<ref name="Biaggioni-2011-p77">{{cite book |author=Biaggioni, Italo |title=Primer on the Autonomic Nervous System |publisher=Academic Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-12-386525-0 |page=77 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FycmOkb-T1gC&pg=PA77 |display-authors=etal}}</ref><ref name="Pennachio-2010-pp82-83">{{Cite book |author=Pennachio, Marcello |title=Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke: Its Ethnobotany As Hallucinogen, Perfume, Incense, and Medicine |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-537001-0 |pages=82–83 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pr9fgQIr5LkC&pg=PA82 |display-authors=etal}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Davis, Wade |title=The Serpent and the Rainbow: a Harvard scientist's astonishing journey into the secret societies of Haitian voodoo, zombis and magic |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-684-83929-5 |page={{page needed |date=July 2012}} |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NAs-JZ1MhoMC}}</ref> In [[Ethiopia]], some students and [[debtera|''debtrawoch'']] (lay priests), use ''D. stramonium'' to "open the mind" to be more receptive to learning, and creative and imaginative thinking.<ref>{{cite book |author=Molvaer, Reidulf Knut |title=Socialization and Social Control in Ethiopia |publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag |year=1995 |isbn=978-3-447-03662-7 |page=259 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F6dW0EPJiVAC&pg=PA259}}</ref>

The common name "datura" has its origins in [[India]], where the sister species ''[[Datura metel]]'' is considered particularly sacred – believed to be a favorite of [[Shiva]] in [[Shaivism]].<ref>{{Cite book |author=Pennachio, Marcello |title=Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke: Its Ethnobotany As Hallucinogen, Perfume, Incense, and Medicine |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-537001-0 |pages=6 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> Both ''Datura stramonium'' and ''D. metel'' have reportedly been used by some [[sadhus]] and [[charnel ground]] ascetics, such as the [[Aghori]], as both an [[entheogen]] and ritual poison. It was sometimes mixed with [[Cannabis (drug)|cannabis]], as well as highly poisonous plants like ''[[Aconitum ferox]]'', to intentionally create dysphoric experiences.<ref>''The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants : Ethnopharmacology and its Applications'', Rätsch, Christian, pub. Park Street Press U.S.A. 2005</ref> The ascetics have used unpleasant or toxic plants such as these in order to achieve spiritual liberation (''[[moksha]]''), in settings of extreme horror and discomfort.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.today.com/popculture/indian-doc-focuses-hindu-cannibal-sect-wbna9842124|title=Indian doc focuses on Hindu cannibal sect|publisher=Today (American TV program)}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Svoboda|first= Robert |year=1986|title= Aghora: At the Left Hand of God {{!}} Brotherhood of Life|publisher= Brotherhood of Life |isbn=0-914732-21-8}}</ref>

Among its visionary purposes, jimsonweed also garnered a reputation for supposed magical uses in various cultures throughout history. In his book, [[The Serpent and the Rainbow (book)|''The Serpent and the Rainbow'']], [[Wade Davis (anthropologist)|Wade Davis]] identified ''D. stramonium'', called "zombi cucumber" in [[Haiti]], as a central ingredient of the concoction [[Haitian Vodou|vodou]] priests use to create [[zombie]]s.<ref>[[Clairvius Narcisse]]</ref><ref>Davis, Wade (1985), ''The Serpent and the Rainbow'', New York: Simon & Schuster</ref> However, it has been noted that the process of ''zombification'' is not directly performed by vodou priests of the [[loa]] but rather by ''[[bokor]]s''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Davis |first=Wade |year=1988 |title=Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie |others=Robert F. Thompson, Richard E. Schultes |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=0-8078-1776-7}}</ref> In European witchcraft, ''D. stramonium'' was also supposedly a common ingredient used for making [[Flying ointment|witches' flying ointment]] along with other poisonous plants of the [[nightshade family]].<ref>Rätsch, Christian, ''The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants: Ethnopharmacology and Its Applications'' pub. Park Street Press 2005</ref> It was often responsible for the hallucinogenic effects of magical or [[lycanthropic]] salves and potions.<ref name="Schultes, Richard Evans 1979"/><ref>Hansen, Harold A. ''The Witch's Garden'' pub. Unity Press 1978 {{ISBN|978-0913300473}}</ref> During the [[witch]]-phobia craze in [[Early Modern]] times in England and parts of the colonial [[Northeastern United States]], it was often considered unlucky or inappropriate to grow the plant in one's garden, as it was considered to be an aid to [[incantations]].<ref name="maud-desc"/>