Heart medicine in the hedge

I'm back in West Wales where foxglove spikes now spring from every bank and wall and hedge. Taking two years from germination to flowering the plants need to root themselves firmly where they will remain undisturbed until they come to maturity.

William Withering, physician and botanist, was, in 1776, the first to identify the active ingredient Digitalis as a powerful cardiac stimulant, capable of strengthening and regulating a faltering heartbeat. It is said that his 'discovery' followed his analysis of a herbal remedy concocted by a Shropshire wise woman (possibly of Romany origin) who cured a seriously ill patient he had been unable to treat. But for centuries before, the foxglove had been used in cases of dropsy (oedema) caused by heart failure as well as for a number of other conditions. Being intensely poisonous it was a tricky medicine to administer and nowadays digoxin is manufactured in the laboratory.

Withering was a member of a group of rationalist thinkers and scientific pioneers including Charles Darwin's father, Erasmus. Yet a clumsy poetic tribute to his achievement gives the credit (regrettably in my opinion) to a 'higher power':

The foxglove's leaves, with caution given,
Another proof of favouring Heav'n
Will happily display;
The rapid pulse it can abate;
The hectic flush can moderate
And, blest by Him whose will is fate,
May give a lengthen'd day.

Withering himself wrote, more judiciously, "In spite of opinion, prejudice, or error, Time will fix the real value upon the discovery and determine whether I have imposed upon myself and others or contributed to the benefit of science and mankind."

No mention of the old Gipsy woman of course!

[Withering's link works now, and the image can be viewed better [url=LARGE]LARGE.[/url]]