SELECTED ARTICLES. 
ART. XXIX— ON THE INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF THE PHAR- 
MACEUTICAL TREATMENT OF DIGITALIS PURPUREA, IN 
FORMING ITS TINCTURE, WITH A PROPOSAL FOR A 
MORE EFFICACIOUS FORMULA. By M. Donovan, Esq. 
The singular control which Digitalis Purpurea is capable of 
exercising over the circulatory system has raised it to a high 
rank amongst therapeutic agents. 
Its effects, however, are not always equally energetic, for 
we frequently find it to disappoint the practitioner; and, 
hence, very different opinions have been entertained concern- 
ing its powers. 
Such disappointments have rendered it an object with 
chemists to discover and isolate the active ingredients in this 
plant, to ascertain its properties, and to determine the means 
of producing from it preparations of unvarying medicinal 
efficacy. With this view, the Society of Pharmacy, of Paris, 
in 1835, offered a prize of 500 francs for the best answer to the 
question, "Does there exist in Digitalis Purpurea, one or more 
proximate principles, to which the medical properties of this 
plant may be attributed?" Notwithstanding the labor be- 
stowed on the investigation at different times by several emi- 
nent persons, the subject is still involved in obscurity. In 
the absence of precise knowledge of the active principle of 
digitalis, it will be of use to point out some of the errors in 
the pharmaceutic management of the plant, which I conceive 
give origin to many of the disappointments above alluded to; 
to offer some suggestions as to the mode of prevention; and 
to introduce such improvements as have been suggested to me 
