What Is Nightshade?

For thousands of years people have used poisons to remove obstacles and create new opportunities, by killing those who stood in their way. In the age before forensic science and chemical analysis, there was really no way of knowing whether poison had been used at all. And for the discerning poisoner, there were many options out there. There was nightshade, a poison that some historians think was used by the real Macbeth to kill Danish invaders in Scotland a thousand years ago. But another deadly plant is the one most people call Hemlock, most famously drank by Socrates as his punishment for the crime of heresy.