An Account of the Foxglove and Some of its Medicinal Uses: With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and other Diseases (facsimile)

[1968]

Hist. Coll. QV153 W823

London: Broomsleigh Press

Birmingham physician William Withering (1741-1799) was a keen botanist, geologist, and friend of Erasmus Darwin. Withering investigated the well-known folk remedy of using fox-glove tea to relieve the symptoms of heart failure. He recognised that there was an active ingredient, which he called digitalis. In Case XLII above, where the patient had pulmonary tuberculosis, there was no relief. In another treatment recorded, Case XLIII, Withering had some success.