Stramonium; Uses/ Indications, Dosage, Side Effects

Last updated: February 7, 2026Reviewed date: February 7, 2026Reading time: 7 min read
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Stramonium (D. stramonium) is one of the widely well-known folklore medicinal herbs. The troublesome weed, D. stramonium is a plant with both poisonous and medicinal properties and has been proven to have great pharmacological potential with a great utility and usage in folklore medicine. D. stromonium has been scientifically proven...

For severe symptoms, danger signs, pregnancy, child illness, or sudden worsening, seek urgent medical care.

বাংলা রোগী নোট এখনো যোগ করা হয়নি। পোস্ট এডিটরে “RX Bangla Patient Mode” বক্স থেকে সহজ বাংলা সারাংশ যোগ করুন।

এই তথ্য শিক্ষা ও সচেতনতার জন্য। এটি ডাক্তারি পরীক্ষা, রোগ নির্ণয় বা প্রেসক্রিপশনের বিকল্প নয়।

Article Summary

Stramonium (D. stramonium) is one of the widely well-known folklore medicinal herbs. The troublesome weed, D. stramonium is a plant with both poisonous and medicinal properties and has been proven to have great pharmacological potential with a great utility and usage in folklore medicine. D. stromonium has been scientifically proven to contain alkaloids, tannins, carbohydrates, and proteins. This plant has contributed various pharmacological actions in the scientific field of Indian...

Key Takeaways

  • This article explains Materia Medica of Stramonium in simple medical language.
  • This article explains Uses/ Indications of Stramonium in simple medical language.
  • This article explains Dosage of Stramonium in simple medical language.
Educational health guideWritten for patient understanding and clinical awareness.
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Emergency safety firstUrgent warning signs are highlighted below.

Seek urgent medical care if you notice

These warning signs are general safety guidance. Local emergency numbers and clinical judgment should always come first.

  • Severe symptoms, breathing difficulty, fainting, confusion, or rapidly worsening illness.
  • New weakness, severe pain, high fever, or symptoms after a serious injury.
  • Any symptom that feels urgent, unusual, or unsafe for the patient.
1

Emergency now

Use emergency care for severe, sudden, rapidly worsening, or life-threatening symptoms.

2

See a doctor

Book a professional medical evaluation if symptoms persist, worsen, recur often, affect daily activities, or occur in a high-risk patient.

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Learn safely

Use this article to understand possible causes, tests, treatment options, prevention, and questions to ask your clinician.

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Definition

Stramonium (D. stramonium) is one of the widely well-known folklore medicinal herbs. The troublesome weed, D. stramonium is a plant with both poisonous and medicinal properties and has been proven to have great pharmacological potential with a great utility and usage in folklore medicine. D. stromonium has been scientifically proven to contain alkaloids, tannins, carbohydrates, and proteins. This plant has contributed various pharmacological actions in the scientific field of Indian systems of medicines like pain-relieving medicine. সহজ বাংলা: ব্যথানাশক ওষুধ।" data-rx-term="analgesic" data-rx-definition="An analgesic is a pain-relieving medicine. সহজ বাংলা: ব্যথানাশক ওষুধ।">analgesic and antiasthmatic activities. The present paper presents an exclusive review work on the ethnomedical, phytochemical, pharmacological activities of this plant.[rx]

Datura stramonium is known by the English names jimsonweed (jimson weed) or devil’s snare, is a plant in the nightshade family. It is believed to have originated in Mexico,[rx] but has now become naturalized in many other regions.[rx][rx][rx] Other common names for D. stramonium include thornapple and moonflower,[rx] and it has the Spanish name toloache.[rx] Other names for the plant include hell’s bells, devil’s trumpet, devil’s weed, tolguacha, Jamestown weed, stinkweed, locoweed, pricklyburr, false castor oil plant,[rx] devil’s cucumber,[rx] and thornapple.[rx]

Materia Medica of Stramonium

  • Mind – Irritable; holds everything in contempt. Full of desires, for what they know not.
  • Head – Bones of the skull feel crushed or bruised. Pain extends to teeth and root of the tongue.
  • Eyes – Inflamed, red. Pain through eyeballs. Profuse lachrymation. Cornea dim. Eyes tire from near vision. State of vision constantly changing. Spasm of accommodation from the irritable weakness of the ciliary muscle. Nausea from looking on moving objects.
  • Face – Blue rings around eyes. Periodical orbital neuralgia, with lachrymation, photophobia, and smarting eyelids.
  • Nose – Coryza, with stoppage of nose and nausea. Epistaxis.
  • Stomach – Tongue usually clean. Mouth, moist; much saliva. Constant nausea and vomiting, with pale, twitching of face. Vomits food, bile, blood, mucus. Stomach feels relaxed as if hanging down. Hiccough.
  • Abdomen – Amebic dysentery with tenesmus; while straining pain so great that it nauseates; little thirst. Cutting, clutching; worse, around the navel. Body rigid; stretched out stiff.
  • Stools – Pitch-like green as grass, like frothy molasses, with griping at the navel. Dysenteric, slimy.
  • Female – Uterine hæmorrhage, profuse, bright, gushing, with nausea. Vomiting during pregnancy. Pain from navel to the uterus. Menses too early and too profuse.
  • Respiratory – Dyspnœa; constant constriction in chest. Asthma. Yearly attacks of difficult shortness of breathing. Continued sneezing; coryza; a wheezing cough. A cough incessant and violent, with every breath. Chest seems full of phlegm but does not yield to coughing. Bubbling rales. A suffocative cough; the child becomes stiff, and blue in the face. Whooping-cough, with a nosebleed, and from the mouth. Bleeding from lungs, with nausea; feeling of constriction; rattling cough. Croup. Hæmoptysis from slightest exertion (Millef). Hoarseness, especially at end of a cold. Complete aphonia.
  • Fever – Intermittent fever, irregular cases, after Quinine. Slightest chill with much heat, nausea, vomiting, and dyspnœa. Relapses from improper diet.
  • Sleep – With eyes half open. Shocks in all limbs on going to sleep (Ign).
  • Extremities – Body stretched stiff, followed by spasmodic jerking of arms towards each other.
  • Skin – Pale, lax. Blue around eyes. Military rash.

Uses/ Indications of Stramonium

Traditional Medicine

  • In Ayurveda, datura has long been used for asthma symptoms. The active agent is atropine. The leaves are generally smoked either in a cigarette or a pipe. During the late 18th century, James Anderson, the English Physician General of the East India Company, learned of the practice and popularized it in Europe.[rx][rx]
  • The Zuni people once used datura as an pain-relieving medicine. সহজ বাংলা: ব্যথানাশক ওষুধ।" data-rx-term="analgesic" data-rx-definition="An analgesic is a pain-relieving medicine. সহজ বাংলা: ব্যথানাশক ওষুধ।">analgesic to render patients unconscious while broken bones were set.[rx] The Chinese also used it as a form of anesthesia during surgery.[rx]
  • It is a very powerful remedy in various convulsive and spasmodic disorders, epilepsy and mania,” and was also “found to give ease in external inflammations and hemorrhoids.”[rx]

Antiasthmatic activity

  • D. stramonium in asthma treatment and possible effects on prenatal development was studied. Exposure of the fetus to D. stramonium when a mother uses it for asthma will cause a continuous release of acetylcholine, resulting in the desensitization of nicotinic receptors, this could ultimately result in permanent damage to the fetus. Therefore we conclude that this African herbal remedy should be used with caution during pregnancy.

Anticholinergic activity

  • The alkaloids found in D. stramonium, are organic esters used clinically as anticholinergic agents. Jimson weed has been reported as a drug of abuse and has been involved in the accidental poisoning of humans and animals.
  • Symptoms of acute jimson weed poisoning included dryness of the mouth and extreme thirst, dryness of the skin, pupil dilation and impaired vision, urinary retention, rapid heartbeat, confusion, restlessness, hallucinations, and loss of consciousness. The anticholinergic syndrome results from the inhibition of central and peripheral muscarinic neurotransmission–.

Acaricidal, repellent and oviposition deterrent properties

  • The ethanol extracts obtained from both leaf and seed in D. stramonium (Solanaceae) were investigated for acaricidal, repellent and oviposition deterrent properties against adult two-spotted spider mites (T. urticaeKoch) (Acari: Tetranychidae) under laboratory conditions.
  • Leaf and seed extracts, which were applied in 167.25 and 145.75 g/L concentrations, respectively (using a Petri leaf disc-spray tower method), caused 98% and 25% mortality among spider mite adults after 48 h. These results suggest that D. stramonium extracts could be used to manage the two-spotted spider mite.

Antimicrobial Activity

  • The methanol extracts of D. stramonium and Datura inoxia showed activity against Gram-positive bacteria in a dose-dependent manner. Little or no antimicrobial activity was found against Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
  • The anti-microbial activity of combined crude ethanolic extract of D. stramonium, Terminalia arjuna and Withania somnifera in cup plate diffusion method for antibacterial and antifungal activity.
  • The extracts were subjected to screening to detect potential antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilus, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Micrococcus luteus and Candida albicans with comparing Ciprofloxacin standard drug.

Anticancer activity

  • An integrated approach is needed to manage cancer using the growing body of knowledge gained through scientific developments. Thousands of herbal and traditional compounds are being screened worldwide to validate their use as anti-cancerous drugs. D. stramonium is n therapeutic dose of 0.05-0.10 g was used to cure cancer. Likely unsafe produce vomiting, hypertension, loss of consciousness may lead to coma but may interact with anticholinergic drugs.

Antiinflammatory activity

  • Coriandrum sativum (C. sativum), D. stramonium and Azadirachta indica (A. indicia) are traditionally used in the treatment of infection, or irritation, often causing pain, swelling, heat, or redness. সহজ বাংলা: শরীরের প্রদাহ; ব্যথা, ফোলা বা লালভাব হতে পারে।" data-rx-term="inflammation" data-rx-definition="Inflammation is the body’s response to injury, infection, or irritation, often causing pain, swelling, heat, or redness. সহজ বাংলা: শরীরের প্রদাহ; ব্যথা, ফোলা বা লালভাব হতে পারে।">inflammation. Ethanolic extracts of fruits of C. sativum, leaves of D. stramonium. Ethanolic extracts of fruits of C. sativum, leaves of D. stramonium and A. indica were subjected to preliminary screening for infection, or irritation, often causing pain, swelling, heat, or redness. সহজ বাংলা: শরীরের প্রদাহ; ব্যথা, ফোলা বা লালভাব হতে পারে।" data-rx-term="inflammation" data-rx-definition="Inflammation is the body’s response to injury, infection, or irritation, often causing pain, swelling, heat, or redness. সহজ বাংলা: শরীরের প্রদাহ; ব্যথা, ফোলা বা লালভাব হতে পারে।">inflammation, pain, or swelling. সহজ বাংলা: প্রদাহ/ফোলা/ব্যথা কমায়।" data-rx-term="anti-inflammatory" data-rx-definition="Anti-inflammatory means reducing inflammation, pain, or swelling. সহজ বাংলা: প্রদাহ/ফোলা/ব্যথা কমায়।">anti-inflammatory activity in albino rats.
  • All ethanolic extracts exhibited significant anti-inflammatory activity comparable to the standard drug diclofenac sodium against carrageenan-induced rat paw edema method. Among these plant, A. indica showed maximum anti-inflammatory activity per hour.

Larvicidal and mosquito repellent activities

  • Ethanolic extracts of leaves of D. stramonium were evaluated for larvicidal and mosquito repellent activities against Aedes aegypti, Anopheles stephensi and Culex quinquefasciatus. The LD50 values for larvicidal activity were found to be 86.25, 16.07 and 6.25 mg/L against Aedes aegypti
  • Anopheles Stephens and Culex quinquefasciatus respectively. The ethanolic leaves extract of D. stramonium provided complete protection time (mosquito repellency) of 2.7, 71.7 and 117.7 min against Aedes aegypti, Anopheles stephensi and Culex quinquefasciatus at higher concentration (1%).

 Pesticide toxicity

  • Extract of D. stramonium was effective in countering the toxicity of the cypermethrin pesticide toxicity.

Antifungal activity

  • Antifungal activity of a concoction brewed from D. stramonium, Calotropis gigantea, A. indica (neem) and cow manure (T1) followed by methanol-water (70/30 v/v) extracts of D. stramonium, Calotropis giganteaand A. indica T2 against Fusarium mangiferae.
  • The study proved that the concoction-brewed compost T1 is effective, inexpensive, easy to prepare and constitutes a sustainable and eco-friendly approach to control floral malformation in mango when it is sprayed at bud break stage and again at fruit set stage.

Vibriocidal activity

  • A simple in vitro screening assay was employed for the standard strain of Vibrio cholerae, 12 isolates of Vibrio cholerae non-O1, and Vibrio parahaemolyticus. Aqueous and organic solvent extracts of different parts of the plants were investigated by using the disk diffusion method.
  • Extracts from 16 medicinal plants were selected on account of the reported traditional uses for the treatment of cholera and gastrointestinal diseases, and they were assayed for vibriocidal activities. The results indicated that Lawsonia inermis, Saraca indica, Syzygium cumini, Terminalia belerica, Allium sativum, and D. stramonium served as broad-spectrum vibriocidal agents.

Others

  • Aphasia.
  • Apoplexy.
  • Burns
  • Delirium tremens
  • Diaphragmitis
  • Epilepsy
  • Erotomania
  • Headache
  • Hiccough
  • Hydrophobia.
  • Hysteria.
  • Meningitis.
  • Nymphomania
  • Sunstroke
  • Tetanus
  • Thirst
  • Tremors

Dosage of Stramonium

  • Adults- Take 4 or 6 Tablets by mouth, three times daily or as suggested by the physician.
  • Children 2 years and older- take 1/2 the adult dose.

References

Stramonium; Uses/ Indications, Dosage, Side Effects

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Safety note: This is not a prescription or diagnosis. For severe symptoms, pregnancy danger signs, children with serious illness, chest pain, breathing difficulty, stroke-like weakness, or major injury, seek urgent care.

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Start with a registered doctor or the nearest qualified health center.

What to tell the doctor

  • Write when the problem started and how it changed.
  • Bring old prescriptions, investigation reports, and current medicines.
  • Write allergies, pregnancy status, diabetes, kidney/liver disease, and major past illnesses.
  • Bring one family member if the patient is weak, elderly, confused, or a child.

Questions to ask

  • What is the most likely cause of my symptoms?
  • Which danger signs mean I should go to hospital quickly?
  • Which tests are necessary now, and which can wait?
  • How should I take medicines safely and what side effects should I watch for?
  • When should I come for follow-up?

Tests to discuss

  • Vital signs: temperature, pulse, blood pressure, oxygen saturation
  • Basic physical examination by a clinician
  • CBC, urine test, blood sugar, or imaging only when clinically needed

Avoid these mistakes

  • Do not use antibiotics, steroid tablets/injections, or strong painkillers without proper medical advice.
  • Do not hide pregnancy, kidney disease, ulcer, allergy, or blood thinner use.
  • Do not delay emergency care when danger signs are present.

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Safe first steps

  • Avoid heavy lifting, sudden bending, and prolonged bed rest.
  • Use comfortable posture and gentle movement as tolerated.
  • Discuss physiotherapy, X-ray, or MRI only when clinically needed.

OTC medicine safety

  • For mild back pain, pain-relief medicine may be discussed with a doctor or pharmacist.
  • Avoid repeated painkiller use if you have kidney disease, stomach ulcer, uncontrolled blood pressure, or are taking blood thinners.

Avoid these mistakes

  • Do not start antibiotics without a proper medical decision.
  • Do not use steroid tablets or injections casually for quick relief.
  • Do not delay emergency care because of home remedies.

Get urgent help if

  • Back pain with leg weakness, numbness around private area, loss of urine/stool control, fever, cancer history, or major injury needs urgent care.
Medicine names, dose, and timing must be decided by a qualified clinician or pharmacist after checking age, pregnancy, allergy, other diseases, and current medicines.

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Doctor to discuss: Medicine doctor / pediatrician for children / qualified clinician
Tests to discuss with doctor
  • Temperature chart and hydration assessment
  • CBC with platelet count if fever persists or dengue/other infection is possible
  • Urine test, malaria/dengue tests, chest evaluation, or blood culture only when clinically indicated
Questions to ask
  • What is the most likely cause of my symptoms?
  • Which warning signs mean I should go to emergency care?
  • Which tests are really needed now?
  • Which medicines are safe for my age, pregnancy status, allergy, kidney/liver/stomach condition, and current medicines?
  • Do I need antibiotics, or is this more likely viral?

Emergency warning signs such as chest pain, severe breathing difficulty, sudden weakness, confusion, severe dehydration, major injury, or loss of bladder/bowel control need urgent medical care. Do not wait for online information.

Safe pathway to proper treatment

Care roadmap for: Stramonium; Uses/ Indications, Dosage, Side Effects

Use this simple roadmap to understand the next safe steps. It is educational and does not replace examination by a doctor.

Go to emergency care if you notice:
  • Severe or rapidly worsening symptoms
  • Breathing difficulty, chest pain, fainting, confusion, severe weakness, major injury, or severe dehydration
Doctor / service to discuss: Qualified healthcare provider; specialist depends on symptoms and examination.
  1. Step 1

    Check danger signs first

    If danger signs are present, seek emergency care and do not wait for online information.

  2. Step 2

    Record the symptom story

    Write when symptoms started, severity, medicines already taken, allergies, pregnancy status, and test results.

  3. Step 3

    Visit a qualified clinician

    A doctor, nurse, or qualified healthcare provider can examine you and decide which tests or treatment are needed.

  4. Step 4

    Do only useful tests

    Do tests after clinical assessment. Avoid unnecessary tests, random antibiotics, or repeated medicines without diagnosis.

  5. Step 5

    Follow up and return early if worse

    If symptoms worsen, new warning signs appear, or treatment is not helping, return for review quickly.

Rural patient practical tips
  • Take a written symptom diary and all previous prescriptions/test reports.
  • Do not hide medicines already taken, even herbal or over-the-counter medicines.
  • Ask which warning signs mean urgent referral to hospital.

This roadmap is for education. A real diagnosis and treatment plan requires history, examination, and clinical judgment.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is this article a replacement for a doctor?

No. It is educational content only. Patients should consult a qualified clinician for diagnosis and treatment.

When should I seek urgent care?

Seek urgent care for severe symptoms, rapidly worsening condition, breathing difficulty, severe pain, neurological changes, or any emergency warning sign.

References

Add references, clinical guidelines, textbooks, journal articles, or trusted medical sources here. You can edit this area from the RX Article Professional Blocks panel.

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