PHARMACOPC@IAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
DIGITALIS 
Digitalis purpurea occurs throughout the greater part of Europe, 
being, however, generally absent from limestone districts. It was used 
in domestic medicine in early days, and by the Welsh (see note, page 1) 
as an external medicine. Fuchs (252) and Tragus (650), 1542, pic- 
tured the plant, but remarked that it was a violent medicine. Parkin- 
son (492) commended it in 1640, and it was investigated in 1776-9 by 
Withering (693), through whose efforts it was introduced into licensed 
medicine. Digitalis was originally employed as a remedy in fevers, in 
which direction it is no longer used. In 1799, J. Ferriar (233), of 
Manchester, England, contributed a treatise concerning the medicinal 
uses of this drug, which was also described by Withering (693), Bosch 
(89), Moore (450), and other authors of that period. At present it 
is largely valued for its poisonous action and is by some standardized 
by its physiological qualities when injected into the veins of lower 
animals, the United States Government having issued a bulletin on 
the subject. 
The Eclectic uses of Digitalis are based on its kindly influence, 
instead of its poisonous action, the aim being to avoid heart shock. 
Consequently the Eclectic Specific Medicine Digitalis has not the 
physiological poisonous action that bases the old school drug valu- 
ation. 
ELATERINUM 
Elaterium is the dried juice of the fruit of Ecballium elate- 
rium, common throughout the Mediterranean regions, from Portugal 
to Southern Russia and Persia, as well as through Central Europe. 
The method of preparing elaterium, as described by Dioscorides (194), 
is practically that of the present day. The drug is also mentioned by 
Theophrastus (633). Elaterium is a powerful hydragogue cathartic, 
parallelling Croton tiglium in its vicious action, and has been empir- 
ically known from the earliest times to the natives of the countries it 
inhabits. Clutterbuck (154), (1819, London Medical Repository, xii, 
p. I-9) recommends a process of obtaining elaterium in irregular cake- 
like fragments, which is now the form in which it is employed in medi- 
cine, hence the common term “Clutterbuck’s elaterium.” 
ERGOTA 
This drug, from the earliest period, has been known as a disturber 
of flour, it having been long since observed that flour made of rye 
containing ergot gave rise to the disease now known as ergotism. 
When we consider that many of the malignant epidemics and frightful 
pestilences recorded in the history of medieval Europe, including an 
epidemic occurring as late as 1816, were ascribed to spurred rye, it 
can be seen that such old terms as “convulsivus malignus” and “mor- 
bus spasmodicus,” once applied to the ergot disease, were well chosen. 
Not till 1838, however, was the nature of ergot authoritatively deter- 
mined by Quekett (529) in his paper read before the Linnzan Society, 
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