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  3. An Account of the Foxglove, and Some of its Medical Uses
  • Cited by 7
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2016
Print publication year:
2014
First published in:
1785
Online ISBN:
9781107706132
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107706132
Subjects:
Plant Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resource Management, Agriculture, Horticulture and forestry, History, History of Medicine
Series:
Cambridge Library Collection - Botany and Horticulture
Information

Book description

In 1775, the physician and botanist William Withering (1741–99) was informed of a folk cure for dropsy that had as its active ingredient the plant foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). Ten years later, after thorough trials on more than 150 patients, Withering published this monograph on the medicinal applications of the plant, not least to keep less experienced doctors from administering it to patients without the proper caution, given the plant's toxicity. Withering was the first doctor to employ foxglove as a remedy for congestive heart failure, which is now the primary disease treated by foxglove-derived pharmaceuticals, and the results from his trials broadly reflect those produced by modern physicians. Withering's first major publication, A Botanical Arrangement of All the Vegetables Naturally Growing in Great Britain (1776), which includes observations on the medicinal applications of British plants, is also reissued in this series.

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