The Foxglove is a plant sufficiently common in this island, and as we
have but one species, and that so generally known, I should have
thought it superfluous either to figure or describe it; had I not more
than once seen the leaves of Mullein[1] gathered for those of
Foxglove. On the continent of Europe too, other species are found, and
I have been informed that our species is very rare in some parts of
Germany, existing only by means of cultivation, in gardens.
[Footnote 1: Verbascum of Linnaeus.]
Our plant is the _Digitalis purpurea_[2] of Linnaeus. It belongs to the
2d order of the 14th class, or the DIDYNAMIA ANGIOSPERMIA. The
_essential characters_ of the genus are, _Cup with 5 divisions.
Blossom bell-shaped, bulging. Capsule egg-shaped, 2-celled._--LINN.
[Footnote 2: The trivial name _purpurea_ is not a very happy
one, for the blossoms though generally purple, are sometimes
of a pure white.]
DIGITA'LIS _purpu'rea_. Little leaves of the empalement egg-shaped,
sharp. Blossoms blunt; the upper lip entire. LINN.
REFERENCES TO FIGURES. These are disposed in the order of comparative
excellence.
_Rivini monopet. 104.
Flora danica, 74, parts of fructification.
Tournefort Institutiones. 73, A, E, L, M.
Fuchsii Hist. Plant. 893, copied in
Tragi stirp. histor. 889.
J. Bauhini histor. Vol. ii. 812. 3, and
Lonicera 74, 1.
Blackwell. auct. 16.
Dodonoei pempt. stirp. hist. 169, reprinted in
Gerard emacul. 790, 1, and copied in
Parkinson Theatr. botanic. 653, 1.
Gerard, first edition, 646, 1.
Histor. Oxon. Morison. V. 8, row 1. 1.
Flor. danic. 74, the reduced figure._
_Blossom._ The bellying part on the inside sprinkled with spots like
little eyes. _Leaves_ wrinkled. LINN.
BLOSSOM. Rather tubular than bell-shaped, bulging on the under side,
purple; the narrow tubular part at the base, white. _Upper lip_
sometimes slightly cloven.
CHIVES. _Threads_ crooked, white. _Tips_ yellow.
POINTAL. _Seed-bud_ greenish. _Honey-cup_ at its base more yellow.
_Summit_ cloven.
S. VESS. _Capsule_ not quite so long as the cup.
ROOT. Knotty and fibrous.
STEM. About 4 feet high; obscurely angular; leafy.
LEAVES. Slightly but irregularly serrated, wrinkled; dark green above,
paler underneath. _Lower leaves_ egg-shaped; upper leaves
spear-shaped. _Leaf-stalks_ fleshy; bordered.
FLOWERS. Numerous, mostly growing from one side of the stem and
hanging down one over another. _Floral-leaves_ sitting, taper-pointed.
The numerous purple blossoms hanging down, mottled within; as wide and
nearly half as long as the finger of a common-sized glove, are
sufficient marks whereby the most ignorant may distinguish this from
every other British plant; and the leaves ought not to be gathered for
use but when the plant is in blossom.
PLACE. Dry, gravelly or sandy soils; particularly on sloping ground.
It is a biennial, and flowers from the middle of _June_ to the end of
_July_.
I have not observed that any of our cattle eat it. The root, the stem,
the leaves, and the flowers have a bitter herbaceous taste, but I
don't perceive that nauseous bitter which has been attributed to it.
* * * * *
This plant ranks amongst the LURIDAE, one of the Linnaean orders in a
natural system. It has for congenera, NICOTIANA, ATROPA, HYOSCYAMUS,
DATURA, SOLANUM, &c. so that from the knowledge we possess of the
virtues of those plants, and reasoning from botanical analogy, we
might be led to guess at something of its properties.
I intended in this place to have traced the history of its effects in
diseases from the time of Fuchsius, who first describes it, but I have
been anticipated in this intention by my very valuable friend, Dr.
Stokes of Stourbridge, who has lately sent me the following
HISTORICAL VIEW of the Properties of Digitalis.
FUCHSIUS in his _hist. stirp._ 1542, is the first author who notices
it. From him it receives its name of DIGITALIS, in allusion to the
German name of _Fingerhut_, which signifies a finger-stall, from the
blossoms resembling the finger of a glove.
SENSIBLE QUALITIES. Leaves bitterish, very nauseous. LEWIS _Mat. med._
i. 342.
SENSIBLE EFFECTS. Some persons, soon after eating of a kind of
omalade, into which the leaves of this, with those of several other
plants, had entered as an ingredient, found themselves much
indisposed, and were presently after attacked with vomitings. DODONAEUS
_pempt._ 170.
It is a medicine which is proper only for strong constitutions, as it
purges very violently, and excites excessive vomitings. RAY. _hist._
767.
BOERHAAVE judges it to be of a poisonous nature, _hist. plant._ but
DR. ALSTON ranks it among those indigenous vegetables, "which, though
now disregarded, are medicines of great virtue, and scarcely inferior
to any that the Indies afford." LEWIS _Mat. med._ i. _p._ 343.
Six or seven spoonfuls of the decoction produce nausea and vomiting,
and purge; not without some marks of a deleterious quality. HALLER
_hist. n._ 330 from _Aerial Infl. p._ 49, 50.
The following is an abridged ACCOUNT
of its EFFECTS upon TURKEYS.
M. SALERNE, a physician at Orleans, having heard that several turkey
pouts had been killed by being fed with Foxglove leaves, instead of
mullein, he gave some of the same leaves to a large vigorous turkey.
The bird was so much affected that he could not stand upon his legs,
he appeared drunk, and his excrements became reddish. Good nourishment
restored him to health in eight days.
Being then determined to push the experiment further, he chopped some
more leaves, mixed them with bran, and gave them to a vigorous turkey
cock which weighed seven pounds. This bird soon appeared drooping and
melancholy; his feathers stared, his neck became pale and retracted.
The leaves were given him for four days, during which time he took
about half a handful. These leaves had been gathered about eight days,
and the winter was far advanced. The excrements, which are naturally
green and well formed, became, from the first, liquid and reddish,
like those of a dysenteric patient.
The animal refusing to eat any more of this mixture which had done him
so much mischief, I was obliged to feed him with bran and water only;
but notwithstanding this, he continued drooping, and without appetite.
At times he was seized with convulsions, so strong as to throw him
down; in the intervals he walked as if drunk; he did not attempt to
perch, he uttered plaintive cries. At length he refused all
nourishment. On the fifth or sixth day the excrements became as white
as chalk; afterwards yellow, greenish, and black. On the eighteenth
day he died, greatly reduced in flesh, for he now weighed only three
pounds.
On opening him we found the heart, the lungs, the liver, and
gall-bladder shrunk and dried up; the stomach was quite empty, but not
deprived of its villous coat. _Hist. de l'Academ._ 1748. _p._ 84.
EPILEPSY.--"It hath beene of later experience found also to be
effectual against the falling sicknesse, that divers have been cured
thereby; for after the taking of the _Decoct. manipulor. ii. c.
polypod. quercin. contus. [Symbol: ounce]iv. in cerevisia_, they that
have been troubled with it twenty-six years, and have fallen once in a
weeke, or two or three times in a moneth, have not fallen once in
fourteen or fifteen moneths, that is until the writing hereof."
_Parkinson_, _p._ 654.
SCROPHULA.--"The herb bruised, or the juice made up into an ointment,
and applied to the place, hath been found by late experience to be
availeable for the King's Evill." PARK. p. 654.
Several hereditary instances of this disease said to have been cured
by it. AEREAL INFLUENCES, _p._ 49, 50, quoted by HALLER, _hist. n._
330.
A man with _scrophulous ulcers_ in various parts of the body, and
which in the right leg were so virulent that its amputation was
proposed, cured by _succ. express. cochl. i. bis intra xiv. dies, in
1/2 pintae cerevisiae calidae_.
The leaves remaining after the pressing out of the juice, were applied
every day to the ulcers. _Pract. ess. p._ 40. quoted by MURRAY
_apparat. medicam. i. p._ 491.
A young woman with a _scrophulous tumour of the eye_, a remarkable
_swelling of the upper lip, and painful tumours of the joints of the
fingers_, much relieved; but the medicine was left off, on account of
its violent effects on the constitution. _Ib. p._ 42 quoted as above.
A man with _scrophulous tumour of the right elbow_, attended for three
years _with excruciating pains_, was nearly cured by four doses of the
juice taken once a month. _Ib. p._ 43. as above.
The physicians and surgeons of the Worcester Infirmary have employed
it in ointments and poultices with remarkable efficacy. _Ib. p._ 44.
It was recommended to them by Dr. Baylies of Evesham, now of Berlin,
as a remedy for this disease. Dr. Wall gave it a tryal, as well
externally as internally, but their experiments did not lead them to
observe any other properties in it, than those of a highly nauseating
medicine and drastic purgative.
WOUNDS. In considerable estimation for the healing all kinds of
wounds, _Lobel. adv._ 245.
Principally of use in ulcers, which discharge considerably, being of
little advantage in such as are dry. HULSE, in R. hist. 768.
DOCTOR BAYLIES, physician to his Prussian Majesty, informed me, when
at Berlin, that he employed it with great success in caries, and
obstinate sore legs.
DYSPNOEA _Pituitosa_ Sauvages i. 657.--"Boiled in water, or wine,
and drunken doth cut and consume the thicke toughnesse of grosse, and
slimie flegme, and naughtie humours. The same, or boiled with honied
water or sugar, doth scoure and clense the brest, ripeneth and
bringeth foorth tough and clammie flegme. It openeth also the stoppage
of the liver spleene and milt, and of the inwarde parts." GERARDE
hist. ed. I p. 647.
"Whensoever there is need of a rarefying or extenuating of tough
flegme or viscous humours troubling the chest,--the decoction or juice
hereof made up with sugar or honey is availeable, as also to clense
and purge the body both upwards and downwards sometimes, of tough
flegme, and clammy humours, notwithstanding that these qualities are
found to bee in it, there are but few physitions in our times that put
it to these uses, but it is in a manner wholly neglected."
PARKINSON, p. 654.
Previous to the year 1777, you informed me of the great success you
had met with in curing dropsies by means of the fol. Digitalis, which
you then considered as a more certain diuretic than any you had ever
tried. Some time afterwards, Mr. Russel, surgeon, of Worcester, having
heard of the success which had attended some cases in which you had
given it, requested me to obtain for him any information you might be
inclined to communicate respecting its use. In consequence of this
application, you wrote to me in the following terms.[3]
[Footnote 3: See the extract from this letter at page 5.]
In a letter which I received from you in London, dated _September_ 29,
1778, you write as follows:--"I wish it was as easy to write upon the
Digitalis--I despair of pleasing myself or instructing others, in a
subject so difficult. It is much easier to write upon a disease than
upon a remedy. The former is in the hands of nature, and a faithful
observer, with an eye of tolerable judgment, cannot fail to delineate
a likeness. The latter will ever be subject to the whims, the
inaccuracies, and the blunders of mankind."--
In my notes I find the following memorandum--"_February_ 20th, 1779,
gave an account of Doctor Withering's practice, with the precautions
necessary to its success, to the Medical Society at Edinburgh."--In
the course of that year, the Digitalis was prescribed in the Edinburgh
Infirmary, by Dr. Hope, and in the following year, whilst I was Clerk
to Dr. Home, as Clinical Professor, I had a favourable opportunity of
observing its sensible effects.
In one case in which it was given properly at first, the urine began
to flow freely on the second day. On the third, the swellings began to
subside. The dose was then increased more than _quadruple_ in the
twenty-four hours. On the fifth day sickness came on, and much
purging, but the urine still increased though the pulse sunk to 50. On
the 7th day, a _quadruple_ dose of the infusion was ordered to be
taken every third hour, so as to bring on nausea again. The pulse fell
to forty-four, and at length to thirty-five in a minute. The patient
gradually sunk and died on the sixteenth day; but previous to her
death, for two or three days, her pulse rose to near one hundred.--It
is needless to observe to you, how widely the treatment of this case
differed from the method which you have found so successful.