Mandrake
Mandrake is the common name for the plant Mandragora, whose roots, because their curious bifurcation cause them to have a semblance to the human figure (male & female), have long been used in witchcraft. In legend it is alleged that when the plant is pulled from the ground, it shrieks in pain. Supposedly, this shriek is able to kill or deafen an unprotected human; the occult literature includes complex directions for harvesting a mandrake root in relative safety.
The Mandrake is a member of the Solanaceae (or Nightshade) family.
Anæthesia : Dioscorides alludes to the employment of mandragora to produce anæsthesia when patients are cut or burnt. Pliny refers to the effect of the odour of mandragora as causing sleep if it was taken "before cuttings and puncturings lest they be felt". Lucian speaks of mandragora as used before the application of the cautery. Galen has a short allusion to its power to paralyze sense and motion. Isidorus is quoted as saying: "A wine of the bark of the root is given to those about to undergo operation that being asleep they may feel no pain."
Ugone da Lucca, who was born a little after the middle of the twelfth century discovered a soporific which, on being inhaled, put patients to sleep so that they were insensible to pain during the operations performed by him the drug he employed is known to have been mandragora.
Bible : Mandrake, from Heb., dud, meaning "love plant", which Orientals believe ensures conception. All interpreters hold Mandragora officinarum to be the plant intended in Gen., xxx, 14, and Cant., vii, 13.
In Literature : Shakespeare, in the 16th century, as will be remembered from Romeo and Juliet," refers four times to mandrake and twice under the name of mandragora. Examples are :-
Give me to drink mandragora . .
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away.
Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra, i. 5.
Shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth.
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, iv. 3.
"Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan"
King Henry VI Part 2 Act 3. Scene II
Other uses of this term include:
Referenced By
Chamber of Secrets | Defence Against the Dark Arts | Defense Against the Dark Arts | Defense Aganist the Dark Arts | Forbidden Forest | Gryffindor | Hallucinogen | Hallucinogenic | Hallucinogenic drug | Hallucinogenic drugs | Hallucinogens | Hogwarts | Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry | Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardery | Hufflepuff | List of fictional species by type | Psychedelic drug | Ravenclaw | Slytherin | The Chamber of Secrets | The Forbidden Forest
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