![]() Did some of those accused of witchcraft really apply flying ointment in this way?ĭr Andrew Sneddon, a historian at the University of Ulster, is sceptical. But the image of hallucinating women astride brooms is so highly sexualised as to seem comic. ![]() So the ointment may well have been capable of delivering powerful delusions of flight. "Vaginal application would be pretty efficient, and the effects of the drugs would be noticeable quite rapidly." "Mucous membranes are particularly good at transporting drugs - that's why cocaine is snorted," he adds. "Alkaloids go through your skin into the bloodstream – consider nicotine patches." Tropane alkaloids easily cross the blood-brain barrier, acting on the central nervous system. "Ointment would have been very effective as a delivery method for scopolamine," says Dr Randolph Arroo, head of research at Leicester School of Pharmacy, De Montfort University. It has been argued that this drug-induced delusion lies at the the root of the myth of witches' flight. As the drugs took effect, delusions of flight may have ensued while astride the broomstick's handle. If contemporary accounts are to be believed, "witches" applied this hallucinogenic ointment with the handle of a broom, smearing the ointment onto the length of the broom and then rubbing the handle against their genitals and even inserting it into the vagina. But high doses can lead to antimuscarinic syndrome: a state of altered consciousness often characterised by delirium and intense hallucinations. Low doses of these chemicals will induce a dry mouth and dilated pupils – and relieve the nausea of travel sickness. Scopolamine and its close cousin atropine are " muscarinic antagonists" – they bind to receptors in the nervous system that would, ordinarily, bind to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. You will have created the green ointment of de Laguna's alleged witch. Tropane alkaloids are unremarkable additions to a modern medicine cabinet, but if you took the raw plant material and pounded it in molten fat, you'd extract an uncontrolled mixture of the alkaloids in their pure, base form. One of these, scopolamine (also known as hyoscine), is the active ingredient of travel-sickness medications such as Boot's Travel Calms and the skin patch Scopoderm. ![]() Like its close relatives henbane ( Hyoscymaus niger) and mandrake ( Mandragora officinarum), its leaves and berries are packed with chemicals called tropane alkaloids. ![]() Nightshade ( Atropa belladonna) is immediately recognisable for its deep purple fruit and was said to be tended by the Devil himself. Nightshade, henbane and mandrake are some of the most toxic plants in the family Solanaceae. The Spanish court physician Andrés de Laguna, writing in the 16th century, claimed to have taken from the home of a couple accused of witchcraft "a pot full of a certain green ointment … composed of herbs such as hemlock, nightshade, henbane, and mandrake." ![]()
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