Important: Safety Warning
This page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Home › Contents › Woody Nightshade
Woody Nightshade
Called also bitter sweet, dulc' amara, and amara dulcis. Place. It grows by the sides of hedges, and in moist ditches, climbing upon the bushes; with winding, woody, but brittle, stalks. Time. It is perennial, and flowers in June and July. Virtues. The roots and stalks, on first chewing them, yield a considerable bitterness, which is soon followed by an almost honey-like sweetness; and they have been recommended in different disorders, as high resolvents and deobstruents. Their sensible operation is by sweat, urine, and stool; the dose from four to six ounces of a tincture made by digesting four to six ounces of the twigs in a quart of white wine.