DIGITALIS PuRPUREA. ORD. XII. Solanaceee, seu Luride, 221 
already pu lished, yet it is but justice to acknowledge that this 
medicine more frequently failed than: could have been. reason-. 
ably saectel from a comparison of the facts stated by Dr. W.'— 
** The dose of the dried leaves, in powder, is from one grain to three 
twice a day. But if a liquid medicine be preferred, a dram of the 
dried leaves is to be infused for four hours in half a pint of boiling 
water, adding to the strained liquor an ounce of any spirituous 
water. One ounce of this infusion, given twice a day, is a medium 
dose. It is to be continued in these doses till it either acts upon 
the kidneys, the stomach, the pulse, (which it has a remarkable 
power of lowering ) or the bowels.” 
* Among the principal of the unsuccessful cases we may notice the eight fatal ones 
related, in the Medical Memoirs by Dr. Lettsom. In ee to these cases, Dr. 
sassstifition of truth, he willingly appeals to the justice and wnat of the public, 
how far his practice is fairly represented in Dr. Withering’s letter: 
SIR * Please to accept my thanks for your offer of inserting any thing new 
which I might have to say respecting the Digitalis; but I really have nothing new to 
observe, nor have I any thing to retract of what I have said before. Uuder my own 
management, under that of the medical practitioners in this part of England, and IE 
may add, also in the hands of some worthy and respectable Clergymen in village 
situations, it continues to be the most certain, and the least offensive diuretic we 
know; in such cases, and in such constitutions, as I have advised its exhibition. I 
have also the satisfaction to find, by letters from some of the most eminent Physicians 
in different parts of England, that it is equally useful and ‘safe in their hands. But 
I complain of the treatment this medicine has had in London. Its ill success there 
cannot be altogether owing to difference of constitutions. Dr. Lettsom has related 
his unsuccessful attempts with a degree of courage, and of candour, which do the 
highest honour to his integrity ;* but no one can compare his choice of patients, with — 
my declarations of the fit and the unfit, or the doses he prescribed, and the: perses 
verance he enjoined, with my doses, rules, and cautions, || without being astonished 
that he could suppose he had been giving this medicine “‘ in the manner prescribed 
“ by me.” +——-I am fully satisfied, that, had I prescribed it in such cases, sucly 
fgrms, a doses, and such repetitions as he has done, the effects would, in my 
hands, have been equally useless, and sa deleterious. I must therefore suppose, 
'* Memoirs of the Med. Society of London, vol. I. p. I fthe Fox-glove p, 181, 184, et seq- 
+ Memoirs of the Medical re # ae vol, Il. page 169, 
No. 19, vou. 2. 3K 
