William Withering and digitalis, 1785 to 1985.

65: Cardioactive Steroids

The Ebers Papyrus provides evidence that the Egyptians used plants containing cardioactive steroids (CASs) at least 3000 years ago. However, it was not until 1785, when William Withering wrote the first systemic account about the effects of the foxglove plant, that the use of CASs was more widely accepted into the Western apothecary. Foxglove, the most common source of plant CAS, was initially ...

Two hundred years of the foxglove.

INTRODUCTION 1985 marks the bicentenary of the publication of William Withering's account of his studies on the clinical use of digitalis.' The first part of the present article reviews the use of digitalis before Withering and also the impact that his work had on the use of digitalis in the next hundred years or so. The final two sections deal with work in the present century concerning the cl...

Digitalis and William Withering, the clinical investigator.

W ILLIAM WITHERING began to use digitalis for dropsical cases during 1775. The first recorded use of digitalis was on December 8 of that year when he administered a "decoction of fol. digital." to a man about 50 years of age who complained "of an asthma." As a result of the therapy, the patient "made a large quantity of water," " His breath gradually drew easier, his belly subsided, and in abou...

[In memory of William Withering (1741-1799). On the 200th anniversary of the work, "An account of the foxglove and some of its medical uses"].

The foxglove, "The old woman from Shropshire" and William Withering.

Though he received his medical education in Edinburgh, William Withering was born and bred, and conducted his practice, in the Midlands of England, where he collaborated closely with medical and nonmedical colleagues who were pioneers of intellectual thought during the industrial revolution. Because of his profound botanical knowledge, he was able to identify Digitalis purpurea as the essential...