Digitalis is a treatment for heart disease. It’s an example of a
cardio-active or cardiotonic drug, in other words a steroid which has the
ability to exert a specific and powerful action on the cardiac muscle in
animals. The term digitalis is used for drug preparations that contain cardiac
glycosides, in particular digoxin. This works by increasing the intensity of
the heart muscle contractions but diminishing the rate, and has been used in
the treatment of heart conditions ever since its discovery in 1775.
In the 18th century an English doctor called
William Withering (1741-1799) was working as a physician in Staffordshire,
England. As a hobby he became interested in plants and botany in general. One
of his patients came to him with a very bad heart condition, but at that time
there was no effective treatment for this so the odds didn’t look good for the
patient’s survival. However, the patient - not discouraged by the inability of
conventional medicine to treat his ailment - went instead to a local old woman
who gave him a secret herbal remedy. Astonishingly, the remedy seemed to work,
and the patient got much better!
When Withering heard about this, he became
quite excited and searched for the old woman throughout Shropshire. When he
eventually found her the old woman told her secret – the herbal remedy was made
from a concoction of over 20 different ingredients, one of which was an extract
of the purple foxglove. The potency of digitalis extract had been known since
the dark ages, when it had been used as a poison for the mediaeval 'trial by
ordeal', and also used as an external application to promote the healing of
wounds. Digitalis has also been a remedy for dropsy, which was the old term for
swelling of soft tissue in the legs and arms.
