- Dilate pupils
- Speed the heart
- Inhibit sweat and salivation
- Serve as an “antidote” to “nerve gas”
Sounds like powerful medicine, and it is, indeed. On the other hand, it is named for Atropos, the Greek goddess responsible for deciding how people die, for a reason. This is a molecule best used by doctors, and only then with a surfeit of caution. Unfortunately, it seems to pop up everywhere!
The somewhat disparate effects of the compound come from its ability to block a particular neurotransmitter receptor. It has a lot of medical uses, due to the above effects.
However, as mentioned earlier, atropine is abundant in nature – you find it in a lot of plants, explaining their poisonousness (or their traditional therapeutic use). The “belladonna,” or “beautiful woman,” eyedrops used in the Renaissance contained atropine. Historically, it was used as an anaesthetic. Because of atropine’s disparate effects and a narrow effective, nontoxic window, dosing it is a tough needle to thread. Those at risk from atropine poisoning include: Wiccans (it’s in mandrake), people after some sort of novel or easily available intoxicant to smoke (it’s in jimsonweed), and kids who are attracted to a plant by the pretty berries (it’s in nightshade).
Atropine is one of a very few truly ancient molecules that finds use in contemporary medicine.