I am reading CJ Sansom’s Revelation, set around the time of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine Parr. In it a man is murdered by having his throat cut. Before that, it is discovered (by the new practice of anatomy, disapproved of by the narrator as gross and offensive) that he has been fed dwale before his death. I didn’t know dwale at all, and it is explained in this book as a kind of anaesthetic using opium, vinegar and pig’s bile and being highly difficult to administer in the correct dosage without causing death, and only used at that stage by monks, doctors, physicians and some unlicensed healers. My Shorter OED says it is composed mostly of belladonna and doesn’t mention opium. And I don’t see any actual mention of it in my book on the history of medicine though it says, “Since antiquity doctors had attempted to deaden surgical pain. Opium and alcohol had long been used as analgesics, and Dioscorides urged that mandragora root steeped in wine be given to patients before facing the knife. Medieval patients might be given a ‘soporific sponge’ soaked in opium, mandragora and hyoscyamine (henbane). Experience, however, taught the dangers of dulling pains by plying patients with alcohol or opium, and few further developments followed until the chemical revolution produced the first anaesthetic gas. (It then goes on to talk of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and chloroform. (Also had a chilling account by Fanny Burney of her having a mastectomy without anaesthetic. “I began a scream that lasted unintermittently during the whole time of the incision - & I almost marvel that it rings not in my Ears still! so excruciating was the agony...”).

But this site http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127089/ seems to suggest that dwale was much less dangerous than Sansom or my book on medicines says, and would have been used by ordinary housewives and that the ingredients used were much milder than might be expected. (Those “grown in northern countries are less potent than those grown in sunnier regions.”

Do any of you have more information about dwale and its uses?

Wow...I didn't know about this. Thanks for the info, Caro....

I can't say that I've heard of dwale but I'm surprised that nightshade isn't listed among its ingredients.

When I was growing up in southern England I remember as a young child having woody nightshade (bittersweet) and deadly nightshade (belladonna) pointed out to me and being gravely warned that their names (particularly that of the latter) were rightly ominous. I also remember being told, however, that very small quantities of nightshade could be used as a painkiller and had been so for centuries. Needless to say this subsequent piece of information seemed to somewhat undermine the former stern warning of danger - or maybe it just reinforced it.

Well, the OED does mention belladonna as one of its ingredients.  All these botanical names are a bit confusing.  I thought my nerines had grown very tall, but people tell me it is belladonna (though oddly I don't remember them growing high like this other years); I see that this belladonna is amaryllis belladonna and deadly nightshade is atropa belladonna.

One site I noticed (just in the title bit) said belladonna/deadly nightshade was no longer used in herbal medicines, but actual medical sites talk about it.  In a NZ Medsafe minutes from 2002 (Medsafe is the safety of medicines branch of the NZ Department of Health) there is comment about it, though I am uncertain whether a change to the level for exemption means they want its use expanded or retracted. It just said:  

"A Weleda submission for a change to the level for exemption from scheduling for atropa belladonna, atropine, hyoscine, hyoscyamine and hyoscyamus niger."
Weleda submission (Microsoft Word document 80KB)

Reading about deadly nightshade reminded me of a NZ plant called tutu (often anglicised to 'toot'); although it is a different genus sites also mention nightshade at the same time.  Doesn't pay to go looking up too much; the site said the last death of someone eating honey contaminated by tutu was in the 1980s.  I knew animals often died from eating tutu but hadn't heard that honey might be dangerous!  Tutu is also considered a Maori taonga, I notice, so presumably it is or has also been used as a medicine. 

Do you go hunting round this site for old threads that might be interesting, Vizzer?  It's good to see things pop up that have been forgotten.

Regarding deadly nightshade, Atropa belladonna, .... as well as the dire warnings about eating the berries I seem to remember being told that it was formerly used, in the form of eye-drops, to cosmetically dilate the pupils, hence the name bella donna - beautiful lady, and that it was until quite recently (indeed perhaps still is) used to dilate the pupils during eye examination and surgery.

The genus name, "atropa", and hence the active chemical atropine, of course derives from "Atropus" one of the three ancient Greek Moirai or fates, who together wove the threads of a person's life. Atropus was the one that finally cut the thread to define the moment of death.

EDIT : According to wiki:

"The common names for [Atopa belladonna] include belladonna, deadly nightshade, divale, dwale, banewort, devil's berries, naughty man's cherries, death cherries, beautiful death, devil's herb, great morel, and dwayberry."

So deadly nightshade is known as dwale too. How very confusing.

PS ..... I rather like the name, naughty man's cherries  

Well, naughty man's cherries must be what cold maids call them Meles. One wonders, however, what grosser name liberal shepherds might give them.

Caro wrote:

Doesn't pay to go looking up too much; the site said the last death of someone eating honey contaminated by tutu was in the 1980s.  I knew animals often died from eating tutu but hadn't heard that honey might be dangerous!

There was a story a couple of months ago about 'radioactive honey' discovered near the decommissioned nuclear power plant at Dounreay in Caithness. And here's a fascinating article on Poisonous Honey Down the Ages.

Caro wrote:

Do you go hunting round this site for old threads that might be interesting, Vizzer?  It's good to see things pop up that have been forgotten.

I do indeed. It is a history board after all.