Monkshood, Devil’s helmet, and wolfsbane

This post gives me an excuse to mention a new free service for chemists called Chemicalize.org. Details later, meanwhile, my family and I saw lots of different flora and fauna on our recent trip to The Gower Peninsula. My son snapped this beautiful, but deadly, photo of monkshood – aconitum, also known as aconite, wolfsbane, leopard’s bane, women’s bane, Devil’s helmet or blue rocket. It is a member of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) and there are over 250 species of Aconitum.

Aconite has long been used in the traditional medicine of Asia (India, China). In Ayurveda the herb is used to increase pitta (fire, bile) dosha and to enhance penetration in small doses. Western medicine recognises its toxicity, although it was used until the middle of the 20th Century, as pharmaceutical alternatives to its active ingredients were found.

Poisoning can occur simply by picking the leaves without wearing gloves. The aconitine toxin is absorbed easily through the skin and the sap of just eleven picked leaves will cause cardiac symptoms for a couple of hours.

Aconitine is a potent neurotoxin that blocks tetrodotoxin-sensitive sodium channels. You can check out the Chemicalize.org information on this compound here. But, much more exciting is that you can view a framed version of this (or any) page using Chemicalize simply by prefixing the URL with “http://www.chemicalize.org/?q=” i.e.

http://www.chemicalize.org/?q=http://imagingstorm.co.uk/monkshood-devils-helmet-wolfsbane.html. Clicking on aconitine displays a pop-up box with the structure that links to the Chemicalize.page.