Am.  Jour-  Pharm. 
May,  1913. 
Digitalis.  Foxglove. 
219 
root  created  both  the  confusion  and  the  prejudice  whereby  the 
leaf  of  the  first  year  was  finally  ostracized,  even  in  authoritative 
literature.  Thus  both  Pharmacopoeias  and  standard  works  on 
materia  medica  were  illogically  led  to  exclude  much  excellent  Digi- 
talis material.  In  searching  for  data  in  this  direction,  we  find  that 
Withering,  in  1785,  writes  as  follows : 5 
My  truly  valuable  and  respectable  friend,  Dr.  Ash,  informed  me  that 
Dr.  Cawley,  then  principal  of  Brazen  Nose  College,  Oxford,  had  been  cured 
of  a  Hydrops  Pectoris  by  an  empirical  exhibition  of  the  root  oi  the  Fox- 
glove, after  some  of  the  first  physicians  of  the  age  had  declared  they  could 
do  no  more  for  him.  I  was  now  determined  to  pursue  my  former  ideas  more 
vigorously  than  before,  but  was  too  well  aware  of  the  uncertainty  which 
must  attend  on  the  exhibition  of  the  root  of  a  biennial  plant,  and  therefore 
continued  to  use  the  leaves. 
In  connection  with  the  leaf-selection,  Withering  is  also  ex- 
plicit in  distinguishing  between  the  qualities  of  the  leaves  gathered 
at  different  seasons  of  the  year,  but  he  does  not  limit  the  drug  to 
6  From  "An  Account  of  the  Foxglove,"  by  William  Withering,  M.D., 
Physician  to  the  General  Hospital  at  Birmingham,  London,  1785. 
J 
Fig.  4.    Matured  leaves  of  Digitalis,  first  year  growth, 
much  reduced. 
