126 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



and from its fancied resemblance to a gloved finger. 

 Tragus (650) was the "first systematic author who 

 noticed it, and from him it received its name, Digitalis 

 (from digitus, finger), in allusion to the German name 

 Fingerhut, signifying a finger-stall, the blossoms resem- 

 bling the finger of a glove." Withering. The home of 

 the most prized digitalis is England. 



Digitalis is easily grown in lands and countries fitted 

 to its culture, reproducing from self-sown seed. 

 Motherby, 1775, (451b), states that "it grows only in 

 gravelly beds," a statement that has been carried 

 through subsequent literature, but is not fact, although 

 we accept that the plant "prefers" such soil. In lime- 

 stone lands digitalis failed, under our personal observa- 

 tion, to respond satisfactorily to cultivation. Lime- 

 stone sections of Kentucky, although very fertile other- 

 wise, and producing luxuriant crops of corn and heavy 

 tobacco, failed utterly with digitalis, although an 

 abundance of seed of unquestioned fertility was em- 

 ployed. In gardens, however, in limestone sections of 

 both Kentucky and Ohio, the transplanted plants 

 thrive for two seasons, but the self-sown seeds there- 

 from fail to maintain the crop. In New York State, 

 in the valley of the Honeoye River, digitalis planted in 

 1820 in a flower garden on the homestead of the Web- 

 ster family, (the home of the writer's mother), at the 

 present date, (recorded in 1912), continues as a great 

 wild bed, self-sown from year to year. The late Pro- 

 fessor M. I. Wilbert, of Washington, D. C., stated to 

 us that under favorable circumstances, digitalis may 

 become a perennial. Possibly this is a factor in its 

 luxuriant growth in the locality named. In some parts 

 of the State of Oregon, digitalis has escaped from culti- 



