34 
DIGITALIS PURPUREA. 
short ; anthers yellow ; pistillum greenish, style simple, stigma 
cloven, of a pink colour ; capsules, egg-shaped, two-celled ; each 
cell containing numerous small angular seeds; the roots are fusiform, 
fibrous, and knotty. 
Sensible and Chemical Properties. Every part of the 
fox-glove is possessed of a very nauseous bitter taste, joined with 
some degree of acrimony, the strength of which varies with the age 
of the plant, and with the season of the year.* The leaves have but 
little smell when green, but acquire a slight narcotic smell by drying: 
the infusion is of a pale olive green, having the taste and odour of 
the plant ; the cclour of the infusion is rendered darker, by sulphate 
of iron ; nitrate of silver produces a violet, and muriate of mercury 
a yellowish precipitate; galls or emetic tartar do not produce any 
precipitate. The tincture is rendered milky by water.f M. 
Bidault de Villiers, who wrote on the medicinal properties of the 
purple fox-glove, chemically analized six drachms of the dried 
leaves, the product as follows : " 1st, two drachms, fifty grains of 
" watery extract ; 2nd, twelve grains of spirituous extract ; 3rd, 
" a peculiar precipitate, eight grains, and two drachms fifty grains 
" of an inert powder, wliich gave by the action of reagents, six 
" grains of carbonate of lime, two grains of the oxide of iron, three 
" grains of sandy quartz, two grains of phosphate qf lime, one 
grain of sulphate of potass, traces of sulphate, muriate of lime, 
" and of carbonated alkali; and one grain of charcoal. "| 
The active properties of digitalis appear to depend upon a par- 
ticular immediate principle or alkali, analogous to that of many other 
vegetables. M. Augustus Le Royer, analized a considerable quan- 
tity of the purple fox-glove, and obtained from it, a quantity of 
brown ponderous substance, possessing many of the qualities 
approximating to a vegetable alkali ; to this substance he gave the 
name of Digitaline. M. Augustus Le Royer made many experi- 
ments with this substance on living animals, the result of which 
proves it to possess the active qualities of digitalis, in a very con- 
centrated state. A middle sized dog was killed in five minutes by 
injecting into the jugular vein half an ounce of water containing a 
grain and a half of digitaline in solution; half a grain of the same 
* Withering, who preferred the leaves to any other part of the plant, observes, 
" These vary greatly in their efficacy at dilFerent seasons of the year, and, perhaps, 
" at difTereut stages of their growth ;" and recommends that they should be gathered 
after the flowering stem has shot up, and about the time the blossoms are comingi forth. 
+ Gray's Elements. 
i Essai sur les Proprieties Medicinales de la Digitale Pourpree, par le Docteur 
Bidault Villiers, 3d. edit. p. 61, Paris, 1812. 
