Anything that comes from Nature is almost always deemed as pure, beneficial, and healthy. Everything from herbal tea to natural muscle relaxants are being touted as the new and better alternatives to more conventional medication. Everyone seems to have fallen into this new craze, even if most people don’t quite understand what they’re getting themselves into. However, nature can provide humanity with much more than natural muscle relaxants and stimulants, as anyone who has had experience with plant and animal toxins can likely attest to. Spiders, scorpions, and a variety of other animals all carry their own natural toxins, often with effects that rival the death rate and potency of even the most powerful man-made neuro-toxins. The plant world also has an abundance of toxins, some of which are well-known, some have played roles in history, and others have been adapted to serve medicinal roles in modern herbal lore, usually as sedatives and muscle relaxants.
One of the more famous herbs with potentially lethal toxic properties would be hemlock. Historically, doses of hemlock were used as a means of executing criminals in various ancient Greek city-states, with...