When we consider that there are over five million Gypsies
wandering about the globe, and that the narcotic seeds of the
thorn apple, which apparently heal, as well as poison, have been
a favorite medicine of theirs for ages, we can understand at
least one means of the weed reaching these shores from tropical
Asia. (Hindoo, dhatura). Our Indians, who call it "white man's
plant," associate it with the Jamestown settlement - a plausible
connection, for Raleigh's colonists would have been likely to
carry with them to the New World the seeds of an herb yielding an
alkaloid more esteemed in the England of their day than the
alkaloid of opium known as morphine. Daturina, the narcotic, and
another product, known in medicine as stramonium, smoked by
asthmatics, are by no means despised by up-to-date practitioners.
Were it not for the rank odor of its leaves, the vigorous weed,
coarse as it is, would be welcome in men's gardens. Indeed, many
of its similar relatives adorn them. The fragrant petunia and
tobacco plants of the flower beds, the potato, tomato, and
egg-plant in the kitchen garden, call it cousin.
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