Anticholinergics

Abstract

THE belladonna alkaloids are prominent among plant products used by man for purposes of both therapeutics and intoxication. The plant source of the natural alkaloids is the solanaceae, or nightshade family.¹ Atropa belladonna (deadly nightshade) is rarely found uncultivated in North America, but Datura stramonium (jimsonweed or stinkweed) grows wild in rural and waste areas in all parts of the United States. Hyoscyamus niger (black henbane) is found wild in the northern Rocky Mountains and close to the Canadian border. Two alkaloids can be extracted from these and other solanaceae. Scopolamine, or l-hyoscine, is the organic ester of tropic acid . . .