Linnaeus chose the species name bella-donna ("beautiful woman" in Italian) in reference to the cosmetic use of the plant during the Renaissance, when women were believed to have used the juice of the berries in eyedrops intended to dilate the pupils and make the eyes appear more seductive.

[16][4][17][18] Extracts of plants in the deadly nightshade family have been in use since at least the 4th century BC, when Mandragora (mandrake) was recommended by Theophrastus for treatment of wounds, gout, and sleeplessness, and as a love potion.

In the first century BC, Cleopatra used Atropine-rich extracts from the Egyptian henbane plant (another nightshade) for the above-mentioned purpose of dilating the pupils of her eyes.

[citation needed] The use of deadly nightshades as a poison was known in ancient Rome, as attested by the rumour that the Roman empress Livia Drusilla used the juice of Atropa bella-donna berries to murder her husband, the emperor Augustus.

[19] In the first century AD, Dioscorides recognised wine of mandrake as an anaesthetic for treatment of pain or sleeplessness, to be given prior to surgery or cautery.

[20] The use of nightshade preparations for anaesthesia, often in combination with opium, persisted throughout the Roman and Islamic empires and continued in Europe until superseded in the 19th century by modern anaesthetics.

Atropa bella-donna is native across temperate southern, central and eastern Europe, northwestern Africa (Morocco and Algeria), and in southwest Asia in Turkey, Iran and the Caucasus.

[1] In Great Britain it is native only in England, where it grows on calcareous soils, on disturbed ground, field margins, hedgerows and open woodland; it is more widespread as an alien, including in Wales, Scotland, and also Ireland, where it is a relic of cultivation as a medicinal herb.

[33] Atropa bella-donna is in the nightshade family (Solanaceae), which it shares with potatoes, tomatoes, aubergine, thornapple, tobacco, wolfberry, and chili peppers.

[4][48][43] The symptoms of poisoning include dilated pupils, sensitivity to light, blurred vision, tachycardia, loss of balance, staggering, headache, rash, flushing, severely dry mouth and throat, slurred speech, urinary retention, constipation, confusion, hallucinations, delirium, and convulsions.

[51] The deadly symptoms are caused by disruption by the atropine of the parasympathetic nervous system's ability to regulate involuntary activities, such as sweating, breathing, and heart rate.

Alongside the side effects of insomnia, local paralysis, and dizziness, are the interchanging states of mind swinging from excitement to absolute rabidness.

[57] Belladonna is currently rarely used cosmetically, as it carries the adverse effects of causing minor visual distortions, inability to focus on near objects, and increased heart rate.

[40][56] Although such cold medicine products are probably safe for oral use at typical atropine dosages (0.2 milligram), there is inadequate scientific evidence to assure their effectiveness.

[40] Scientific evidence to recommend the use of A. bella-donna in its natural form for any condition is insufficient,[3][4][40] although some of its components, in particular l-atropine, which was purified from belladonna in the 1830s, have accepted medical uses.

[50] Donnatal is a prescription pharmaceutical, that combines natural belladonna alkaloids in a specific, fixed ratio with phenobarbital to provide peripheral anticholinergic or antispasmodic action and mild sedation.

[61] Belladonna has been used in herbal medicine for centuries as a pain reliever, muscle relaxer, and anti-inflammatory, and to treat menstrual problems, peptic ulcer disease, histaminic reaction, and motion sickness.

[64] In homeopathic practices, belladonna was prescribed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann as a topical medication for inflammation and pain diluted to such an extent that none of the plant was actually present in the preparation.

[3] In 2010 and 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration warned consumers against the use of homeopathic teething tablets and gels containing belladonna as used for infants and children, stating that the products may be toxic, causing "seizures, difficulty breathing, lethargy, excessive sleepiness, muscle weakness, skin flushing, constipation, difficulty urinating, or agitation" especially for the lower potencies which are, counterintuitively, the ones that are more likely to include belladonna since they are less diluted.

[66][67] Atropa bella-donna and related plants, such as Datura stramonium (commonly known as thornapple or jimson weed), have occasionally been used as recreational drugs because of the vivid hallucinations and delirium they produce.

[38][15] Medical historians also suspect that Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, was poisoned using a combination of Atropa bella-donna and laudanum.

[78][15] Carlo Ginzburg and others have argued that flying ointments were preparations meant to encourage hallucinatory dreaming; a possible explanation for the inclusion of belladonna and opium poppy in flying ointments concerns the known antagonism between tropane alkaloids of belladonna (scopolamine) and opiate alkaloids in the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum (to be specific, morphine), which produces a dream-like waking state (hypnagogia) or potentiated dreams while the user is asleep.

[81][82] Among the ancient folk traditions of the Romanian (Moldavian) / Ukrainian region of Bukovina in the Carpathians is the ritual for a Bukovinian girl to enhance her attractiveness by making an offering to deadly nightshade.