digitalis purpurea/edema

For centuries, drugs that increase the power of contraction of the failing heart have been used for the treatment of congestive heart failure (dropsy). The cardiac effect is due to the content of cardiac glycosides. Squill or sea onion, Urginea (Scilla) maritima, a seashore plant, was known by the

William Withering was an established member of the renowned Lunar Society as well as an accomplished physician and botanist. Withering was an obsessive note taker and had a compulsion to observe and record. At the time when bleeding was the most common form of treatment for "dropsy", Withering's

This year we are celebrating the bicentenary of the publication, by William Withering, of An Account of the Foxglove and Some of its Medicinal Uses with Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases (1). During these two hundred years digitalis has constantly been to the fore of medical thinking

This contribution summarizes the use of herbal diuretics over the period of two thousand years. After describing the role of herbs in the framework of the theory of the balance of humors for well-being, it details the contributions of Pliny the Elder (23-79), Dioscorides (40-90), Hildegard von

Several plant extracts containing cardiac glycosides have been used in the treatment of dropsy (oedemas) for many centuries. When William Withering 1785 published his book "An account of the foxglove and some of its medical uses", he was aware that digitalis is effective only in certain medical

Cardioactive steroids (CAS) are medically important compounds historically used for conditions like edema and "dropsy." There is literature from the 17th century regarding their therapeutic effects. They are available in several plants including oleander, foxglove, lily of the valley, red squill,