Brugmansia - Uses

Uses

Brugmansia are most often grown today as flowering ornamental plants.

In modern medicine, important alkaloids such as scopolomine, hyoscyamine, and atropine, found in Brugmansia and other related members of Solanaceae, have proven medical value for their spasmolytic, anti-asthmatic, anticholinergic, narcotic and anesthetic properties, although many of these alkaloids, or their equivalents, are now artificially synthesized.

Brugmansia have also traditionally been used in many South American indigenous cultures in medical preparations and as a ritualistic hallucinogen for divination, to communicate with ancestors, as a poison in sorcery and black magic, and for prophecy. Medicinally, they have mostly been used externally as part of a poultice, tincture, ointment, or where the leaves are directly applied transdermally to the skin. External uses include the treating of aches and pains, dermititis, orchitis, arthritis, rheumatism, headaches, infections, and as an anti-inflammatory. They have been used internally much more rarely due to the inherent danger of ingestion. Internal uses, in highly diluted preparations, and often as a portion of a larger mix, include treatments for stomach & muscle ailments, as a decongestant, to induce vomiting, to expel worms and parasites, and as a sedative. In a concentrated or refined form, derivatives of Brugmansia are also used for murder, seduction, and robbery.

Several South American cultures have used Brugmansia as a treatment for unruly children, that they might be admonished directly by their ancestors in the spirit world, and thereby become more compliant. Mixed with maize beer and tobacco leaves, it has been used to drug wives and slaves before they were buried alive with their dead lord.