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. Source: Strand Magazine, public domain
The mysterious root poison devil’s foot root (
Radix pedis diaboli), first seen in Arthur Conan Doyle’s
The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot, has not yet found its way either into the pharmacopoeia or into the literature of toxicology. Then again, it would not be as famous as it is today if it had instead appeared in the toxicological literature of the time.
The devil’s foot root remains fictitious – but it masks historical realities. As Dr Sterndale, the tale’s criminal-physician, reports, the poison is found nowhere in Europe “save for one sample in a laboratory at Buda”. The root is semi-anthropomorphised in that it is “shaped like a foot, half human, half goatlike; hence the fanciful name given by a botanical missionary”. According to Dr Sterndale, ....

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