Also 7 strammonium, 8 stramonia. [a. mod.L. stramonium (Parkinson, 1629), strammonium (F. Columna, 1592), stramonia (Fuchs 1542, given as Italian), of uncertain origin. Cf. F. stramoine (more usually stramonium), Sp., Pg. estramónio, It. stramonio.
The Russian synonym дурманъ durma·n is said by Miklosich to be adopted from the Kazan Tartar turman, ‘a medicine for horses.’ It seems possible that stramonia may be altered from an earlier form or a dialectal variant of the Tartar word.]
1. The solanaceous plant Datura Stramonium, the THORN-APPLE. Purple stramonium: the Purple Thorn-apple, Datura Tatula.
1677. Grew, Anat. Plants, IV. III. v. (1682), 188. The Seed-Case of Stramonium or Thorn Apple, is divided into Four Closets.
1694. Strammonium [see THORN-APPLE].
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Stramonia,… the Apple of Peru, or Thorn-Apple.
1741. Compl. Fam.-Piece, II. iii. 357. Tender annual Flowers,… such as … double-flowering Stramonium.
1881. W. H. Gibson, in Harper’s Mag., Oct., 648. See this long bouquet of Bouncing-Bet, stramonium and pansy that follows along the foundations of this old gray barn.
1905. Tuckwell, Remin. Radical Parson, x. 140. I had seen a heavy profit reaped by a shrewd farmer who took it at a low rate on poppies, henbane, and stramonium.
2. A narcotic drug prepared from this plant.
1802. Med. Jrnl., VIII. 427. I have found the stramonium especially beneficial in cases of mania attended with little or no fever.
1887. Moloney, Forestry W. Afr., 395. The properties of stramonium are regarded as anodyne and anti-spasmodic.
3. attrib.
1840. Pereira, Elem. Mat. Med., II. 865. Stramonium seeds, bruised.
1856. G. B. Wood, Therap. & Pharmacol., I. 809. Stramonium Leaves. Ibid., 810. Stramonium Root.
1868. Garrod, Mat. Med. (ed. 3), 291. In extracting the alkaloids from corresponding parts of belladonna and stramonium plants.
1888. Pall Mall Gaz., 22 May, 6/1. Stramonium cigarettes.
