The healing power of poisonous plants

By Anthony Booker, Reader in Ethnopharmacology, University of Westminster

Some of the best-known medicines come from poisonous plants. The chemotherapy drug taxol comes from the yew tree, morphine from the opium poppy and digoxin from the foxglove. These plants can have lethal toxicity if taken in their raw form. Digoxin is prescribed to treat angina at doses a thousand times more dilute than most prescription medications, highlighting the plant’s extreme potency.

Many people consider herbal medicines a safe alternative to pharmaceuticals. And it’s true that many herbal medicines…

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