Scopolamine

Scopolamine

Scopolamine is in a family of anticholinergic hallucinogens along

with hyocyamine, and atropine. Although they can be synthesized in a

laboratory from various precursors, they are found naturally occurring

in four genuses of the Solanaceae (potato) family: Atropa, Datura,

Mandragora, and Hyoscyamus. People around the world have utilized the

effects of Scopolamine in manifold ways. Using extracts from Atropa

Belladonna which means beautiful woman, ancient Egyptian and Roman

women are supposed to have put the juice on their eyes leading to

larger pupils which was considered more beautiful. In more recent

times, the prolonged dilation of the pupils known as mydriosis, has

been effectively employed during opthamallogical procedures. Hamlet's

father in Shakespear's play was killed by "hebone" which is now

understood to have been Henbane, a Scopolamine containing plant in the

genus hyoscyamus. The witches of medieval times are thought to have

used ointments made of Atropa and rubbed on a broomstick to induce

feelings of flight and visions of travels to the Witches Sabbath.

Plants from the datura family were used by bands of thieves in India to

drug their victims into a stupor. It has also more recently come to

light that datura is a key ingredient in a paste used in Haiti to

maintain a lack of free will in people who had been resurrected from

their graves as Zombies to be enslaved for manual labor. The Oracle at

Delphi may have used datura to prophecy, while the the dung of beetles

fed datura was used to execute unfaithful lovers.

Scopolamine (C17H21NO4) is a heterocyclic compound with a single

chiral at its center bonded to a MeOH group. The Carbon makes up

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...Utility of Scopolamine.

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Edition. Columbia University Press.