An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses, William Withering [reading eggs books txt] 📗

bran and water only; but notwithstanding this, he continued drooping, and without appetite. At times he was seized with convulsions, so strong as to throw him down; in the intervals he walked as if drunk; he did not attempt to perch, he uttered plaintive cries. At length he refused all nourishment. On the fifth or sixth day the excrements became as white as chalk; afterwards yellow, greenish, and black. On the eighteenth day he died, greatly reduced in flesh, for he now weighed only three pounds.

On opening him we found the heart, the lungs, the liver, and gall-bladder shrunk and dried up; the stomach was quite empty, but not deprived of its villous coat. Hist. de l'Academ. 1748. p. 84.

Epilepsy.—"It hath beene of later experience found also to be effectual against the falling sicknesse, that divers have been cured thereby; for after the taking of the Decoct. manipulor. ii. c. polypod. quercin. contus. ℥iv. in cerevisia, they that have been troubled with it twenty-six years, and have fallen once in a weeke, or two or three times in a moneth, have not fallen once in fourteen or fifteen moneths, that is until the writing hereof."

Parkinson, p. 654.

Scrophula.—"The herb bruised, or the juice made up into an ointment, and applied to the place, hath been found by late experience to be availeable for the King's Evill." Park. p. 654.

Several hereditary instances of this disease said to have been cured by it. Aereal Influences, p. 49, 50, quoted by Haller, hist. n. 330.

A man with scrophulous ulcers in various parts of the body, and which in the right leg were so virulent that its amputation was proposed, cured by succ. express. cochl. i. bis intra xiv. dies, in ½ pintæ cerevisiæ calidæ.

The leaves remaining after the pressing out of the juice, were applied every day to the ulcers. Pract. ess. p. 40. quoted by Murray apparat. medicam. i. p. 491.

A young woman with a scrophulous tumour of the eye, a remarkable swelling of the upper lip, and painful tumours of the joints of the fingers, much relieved; but the medicine was left off, on account of its violent effects on the constitution. Ib. p. 42 quoted as above.

A man with scrophulous tumour of the right elbow, attended for three years with excruciating pains, was nearly cured by four doses of the juice taken once a month. Ib. p. 43. as above.

The physicians and surgeons of the Worcester Infirmary have employed it in ointments and poultices with remarkable efficacy. Ib. p. 44. It was recommended to them by Dr. Baylies of Evesham, now of Berlin, as a remedy for this disease. Dr. Wall gave it a tryal, as well externally as internally, but their experiments did not lead them to observe any other properties in it, than those of a highly nauseating medicine and drastic purgative.

Wounds. In considerable estimation for the healing all kinds of wounds, Lobel. adv. 245.

Principally of use in ulcers, which discharge considerably, being of little advantage in such as are dry. Hulse, in R. hist. 768.

Doctor Baylies, physician to his Prussian Majesty, informed me, when at Berlin, that he employed it with great success in caries, and obstinate sore legs.

Dyspnœa Pituitosa Sauvages i. 657.—"Boiled in water, or wine, and drunken doth cut and consume the thicke toughnesse of grosse, and slimie flegme, and naughtie humours. The same, or boiled with honied water or sugar, doth scoure and clense the brest, ripeneth and bringeth foorth tough and clammie flegme. It openeth also the stoppage of the liver spleene and milt, and of the inwarde parts." Gerarde hist. ed. I p. 647.

"Whensoever there is need of a rarefying or extenuating of tough flegme or viscous humours troubling the chest,—the decoction or juice hereof made up with sugar or honey is availeable, as also to clense and purge the body both upwards and downwards sometimes, of tough flegme, and clammy humours, notwithstanding that these qualities are found to bee in it, there are but few physitions in our times that put it to these uses, but it is in a manner wholly neglected."

Parkinson, p. 654.

Previous to the year 1777, you informed me of the great success you had met with in curing dropsies by means of the fol. Digitalis, which you then considered as a more certain diuretic than any you had ever tried. Some time afterwards, Mr. Russel, surgeon, of Worcester, having heard of the success which had attended some cases in which you had given it, requested me to obtain for him any information you might be inclined to communicate respecting its use. In consequence of this application, you wrote to me in the following terms.[3]

In a letter which I received from you in London, dated September 29, 1778, you write as follows:—"I wish it was as easy to write upon the Digitalis—I despair of pleasing myself or instructing others, in a subject so difficult. It is much easier to write upon a disease than upon a remedy. The former is in the hands of nature, and a faithful observer, with an eye of tolerable judgment, cannot fail to delineate a likeness. The latter will ever be subject to the whims, the inaccuracies, and the blunders of mankind."—

In my notes I find the following memorandum—"February 20th, 1779, gave an account of Doctor Withering's practice, with the precautions necessary to its success, to the Medical Society at Edinburgh."—In the course of that year, the Digitalis was prescribed in the Edinburgh Infirmary, by Dr. Hope, and in the following year, whilst I was Clerk to Dr. Home, as Clinical Professor, I had a favourable opportunity of observing its sensible effects.

In one case in which it was given properly at first, the urine began to flow freely on the second day. On the third, the swellings began to subside. The dose was then increased more than quadruple in the twenty-four hours. On the fifth day sickness came on, and much purging, but the urine still increased though the pulse sunk to 50. On the 7th day, a quadruple dose of the infusion was ordered to be taken every third hour, so as to bring on nausea again. The pulse fell to forty-four, and at length to thirty-five in a minute. The patient gradually sunk and died on the sixteenth day; but previous to her death, for two or three days, her pulse rose to near one hundred.—It is needless to observe to you, how widely the treatment of this case differed from the method which you have found so successful.

OF THE PLATE.

The figure of the Foxglove, facing the Title Page, is copied by the permission and under the inspection of Mr. Curtis, from his admirable work, entitled Flora Londinensis. The accuracy of the drawings, the beauty of the colouring, the full descriptions, the accurate specific distinctions, and the uses of the different plants, cannot fail to recommend that work to the patronage of all who are interested in the encouragement of genius, or the promotion of useful knowledge.

EXPLANATION.