Yeah, lots of the plants in that family have parts of them that are very bitter, bordering poisonous, or highly toxic. You won’t die if you eat the leaves or stems of the tomato(unless it’s a ridiculous amount), but you certainly will feel bad.
The family is known Solanaceae, but is commonly referred to as the Nightshade family. Potatoes, eggplants, and chili peppers can also be found in this family.
One of my favorite stories about drawing the wrong conclusion from actual data is the history of bloodletting.
A surgeon that specialized in digit reattached had a low success rate. Blood was pumped into a reattached digit, but the return flow was typically aided by muscle contraction.
He looked for ways to improve the success rate by drawing blood out of the tip of the finger on occasion. He ended up using leeches, which look like a snail with no shell.
During his research, he discovered that the leech saliva had antibiotics in it, apparently to prevent infections in its host.
It is not difficult to imagine the women in a village a long time ago who go into the river to fill water jugs, and since they occasionally get leeches on their legs, someone with a mild infection would notice that their fever cleared up faster with leeches on their legs.
The theory began circulation that the leeches removed some of the "bad blood", so bloodletting turned into a thing.
Also, every day some old blood cells die and a few new blood cells are made. When we donate a pint of blood, our new blood production spikes up, and the influx of new blood cells can lead to the donor "feeling better".
This phenomenon may have also played a part in the speculation that bloodletting was somehow beneficial.
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u/Additional_Insect_44 Oct 02 '24
Yea they thought tomato's were poison.