The Divine Digitalis

According to Dr. Schwarz's Fly in the Ointment, one of Dr. William Withering's patients cured her dropsy by taking an herbal medication from the "wise woman of Shopshire". Dr. Withering, an expert botanist, looked at the twenty-plant-long ingredient list and isolated foxglove as the active ingredient. He experimented until he created the first standard and reproducible drug.

This preperation, known as Digitalis purpurea, became an extremely popular cure for dropsy. Today, some still use Digitalis to treat heart failure. Dr. Erasmus Darwin, fellow Birmingham Lunar Sociey member and grandfather of Charles Darwin, even depicts dropsy as divine and immortal in the following poem:

Bolster'd with down, amid a thousand wants,
Pale Dropsy rears his bloated form, and pants;
"Quench me ye cool pellucid rills," he cries,
Wets his parched tongue and rolls his hollow eyes.
So bends tormented Tantalus to drink
While from his lips the refluent waters shrink;
Again the rising stream his bosom laves
And thirst consumes him mid circumfluent waves.
Divine Hygeia from the bending sky
Descending, listens to his piercing cry;
Assumes bright Digitalis dress and air;
Her ruby cheeck, white neck and rraven hair;
Four youths protect her from the circling throng,
And like the Nymph the Goddess steps along,
O'er him she waves he serpent wreathed wand,
Cheers with her voicce and raises with her hand
Warms with rekindling bloom his visage wan,
And charms the shapeless monster into man.

This poem, found on the Texas A&M Medical Botany website, fairly represents the public's view of digitalis during the late 1700s and through the 1800s. But what makes Digitalis so divine?

The Texas A&M Medical Botany website provides some answers. Digitalis contains a glysocide bond , meaning two sugars are bonded in a specific formation. For a picute of this bond, click here. This bond indriectly helps increase levels of sodium ions in the cells, which causes increased calcium ion levels in the cells. These extra Calcium ions bond with other chemicals in the cells to help regulate heartbeat. However, scientists do not fully understand how Digitalis works. For more information on how Digitalis works, click here.