Solanaceae

When we make a study of the medicinal plants of a family such as the Solanaceae there is no need to linger over their botanical classification. We can rely for this on the botanists. There is no doubt that they have correctly determined the main relationships of the family from the morphology and histology of the species. But these gross structural characteristics cannot be correlated to the medicinal actions of the plants. Poetic observations on the exterior of the plants as clues to their medicinal actions in the fashion of the signature rerum may seem very attractive to many, but they have no place in the homeopathic materia medica. The relevant structures are on the molecular level. To understand the actions from structural characteristics of the plants, one must take account of those special chemical products of their metabolism which, being alien, can interfere with the functions of the human organism. In the Solanaceae these substances are chiefly alkaloids, i.e. basic products of the amino acid metabolism characteristic of this family of plants. And it is the structure of these alkaloids which leads to a natural grouping of the species we use in medicine. The most important group is characterized by atropine (or rather hyoscyamine). We shall discuss only Atropa belladonna, Hyosyamus niger, Datura stramonium and Mandragora officinalis from among its members; Duboisia and Scopolia need not concern us here. The second group, characterized by nicotine is only represented by Nicotiana tabacum; the third, that of the solanine plants, by Solanum Dulcamara and Capsicum annuum. In the latter, however, other non-alkaloid constituents must also be considered to play a part in its actions.

Reprinted by permission from The British Homeopathic Journal, 51, 1962, translated by R.E.K. Meuss.

Citation: Leeser, O. (1962). Solanaceae. British Homoeopathic Journal, 51(3), 149-166.