What is wolf'sbane?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
October 1, 2001
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Wolf'sbane (Aconitum lycoctonum) is one of those confusing plants of legend. Hollywood would have you believe that gypsies give you wolf'sbane as an amulet against the loup-garou. But werewolves are not herbivores and even the scariest of Lon Chaney's characters would find it too bitter to eat. Wolf'sbane is a beautiful perennial in the buttercup family. This sounds innocent enough, but wolf'sbane contains the toxin, aconitine.
In some of the ancient Greek city-states, the death penalty was carried out by requiring the criminal to drink a decoction of Aconitum. On the island of Ceos, the infirm elderly were expected to relieve their families by taking a draught. Aconitine is an insidious poison. The body becomes numb; paralysis creeps from the toes and fingers toward the body. The pulse weakens, respiratory failure begins, but the mind is left clear to realize that death is imminent. Death usually occurs in about two hours, a very long time for a mind that knows what is happening.
John Gerard witnessed a case of aconitine poisoning in Antwerpe in the 1500's, "...the leaves hereof were by certain ignorant persons served up in salads, all that did eat thereof were presently taken with most cruel symptoms, and so died. The symptoms that follow...their lips and tongues swell forthwith, their eyes hang out, their thighs are stiff, and their wits are taken from them" (The Herbal, 1597).
Wolves certainly did not eat it. During medieval times when wolves were blamed for everything, farmers and townsfolk hired hunters to kill them. Wolf'sbane received its name because these hunters poisoned the tips of spears and arrows with sap from the roots. Aconitine is so toxic that slight injury caused paralysis allowing the hunters to kill the animal without risking themselves. Or if enough aconitine was delivered on the spear point, the injury ensured the wolf's death.
Texas A and M University has an excellent photograph of Aconitum lycoctonum. To view the photograph, click on the link:
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/schoepke/aco_vu_1.jpg 
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