Observations on phthisis pulmonalis, and the use of the digitalis purpurea in the treatment of that disease : with practical remarks on the use of the tepid bath / by Isaac Rand, M.D. ... ; read at the request of the Massachusetts Medical Society, June 6, 1804.

  • Rand, Isaac, 1743-1822.
Date:
1804
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on phthisis pulmonalis, and the use of the digitalis purpurea in the treatment of that disease : with practical remarks on the use of the tepid bath / by Isaac Rand, M.D. ... ; read at the request of the Massachusetts Medical Society, June 6, 1804. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    The digitalis purpurea of Linacus has been employed in medicine since the sixteenth Century ; and in some cases of phthisis pulmonalis with permanent success ; and has been celebrated as a certain remedy, and con- demned as a poison, from that period to the present time. * The first physicians who employed it, in pectoral complaints, are extravagant in their encomiums on it. Fuchsius in his hnla plantarum, to whom we are indebted for its namipvas the first that introduced it into medicine ; he speaks highWof its utility in this disease. Gerard and Parkinson,^Jfrx>{ the most celebrated older botanists extol it\s an'^xpec'torant; and Doctor With- ering has give&hi manuscript note of Saunders, found in a copy of PjtljHrSfcn's verbal, which mentions consump- tions as infailit>!V cured b}' a decoction of fox glove leaves in water. Salmon in his family diet, says it is a specific^ in consumptions. But Ray, Boerhaave and Haller, assert its effects as generally deleterious. These discordant opinions may be accounted for, by considering that among the poor, where it was at first chiefly used, its incautious exhibition would naturally lead to this conclusion, that it was a poi- son ; but that when it was directed and its exhibition un_ der the eye of an intelligent and vigilant physician, its use was attended with the most surprising effects and cures. Doctor Withering, was the first, I believe, who men- tions its peculiarproperty as a diuretic\in dropsies ; pre- vious to that period, it was celebrated in epilepsy and scrophula as well as consumption. * Medical and Physical Journal, passim, voce digtialis purpurea.