[mod.L.; a. It. bella donna, lit. ‘fair lady,’ name given in Italy to the plant, on uncertain grounds.
(The usual statement, current since the time of Ray and Tournefort, is given in quot. 1757; a different account is in quot. 1851. A well-known property of the juice is to enlarge the pupil of the eye.)]
I. 1. Bot. The specific name of the Deadly Nightshade or Dwale (Atropa Belladonna), occasionally used as English.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, II. lvi. (1633), 341. In English, Dwale, or sleeping nightshade: the Venetians and Italians call it Belladona.
1757. Pultney, in Phil. Trans., L. 62. Bella-donna is the name, which the Italians, and particularly the Venetians, apply to this plant; and Mr. Ray observes, that it is so called because the Italian ladies make a cosmetic from the juice.
1851. E. Hamilton, Flora Homœop., iii. 64. Belladonna, because it was employed by Leucota, a famous poisoner of Italy, to destroy the beautiful women.
1876. Harley, Mat. Med., 488. Belladonna is cultivated for medicinal use at Hitchin.
2. Med. The name, in the pharmacopœia, of the leaves and root of this plant, and of the drug thence prepared, the active principle of which is the alkaloid atropine.
1788. Edinb. New Dispens., II. (1791), 145. The belladonna taken internally has been highly recommended in cancer.
1866. Treas. Bot., 109. Belladonna is said by homœopathists to act as a preventative of scarlet fever.
1875. H. Wood, Therap. (1879), 250. Belladonna is not a hypnotic.
II. Belladonna Lily, Amaryllis Belladonna, a native of the Cape of Good Hope.
1734. Miller, Gard. Cal., 140. The roots of the Guernsey and Belladonna Lillies.
1862. Ansted, Channel Isl., IV. xxi. 499. The belladonna is a yet more handsome lily.
1866. T. Moore, in Treas. Bot., 48. The name Belladonna Lily was given … from the charmingly blended red and white of the perianth, resembling the complexion of a beautiful woman.
