"The Italians have an usuall proverbe with them concerning this herb, called by them Aralda, which is Aralda tutte piaghe salda : Aralda salveth all sores It hath been found by late ex perience to be availeable for the King s Evill .... also to be effectual! against the Falling Sicknesse,-that divers have been cured thereby."
Later, Salmon, in The New London Dispensatory, praises
the remedy foxglove in no measured terms.
Digitalis was first brought prominently under the notice of the medical profession by Dr "W. Withering, who, in his Account of the Foxglove (1785), gave details of upwards of 200 cases, chiefly dropsical, in which it was used. Having become acquainted with the drug in 1775 as an ingredient in a Shropshire family receipt for the cure of dropsy, he began to administer it as a diuretic, but at first in doses too large ; for, " misled by reasoning from the effect of the squills, which generally acts best upon the kidneys when it excites nausea," he sought to produce the same effect by foxglove. Further experience, however, convinced him "that its diuretic effects do not at all depend upon its exciting nausea or vomiting ; " and that often the urinary discharge may be checked when the dose is imprudently urged so as to occasion sickness. He moreover observed that in cases where the drug produced purging it was inefficacious unless combined with small doses of opium, B-O as to restrain its actioa on the bowels. Withering seldom found it to succeed in men of great natural strength, tense fibre, warm skin, and florid complexion, or in those with a tight and cordy pulse. He recommended digitalis " in every species of dropsy, except the encysted;" and lie was of opinion that it might bo made subservient to the cure of diseases unconnected with dropsy, and that its power over the motion of the heart, to a degree unobserved by him in any other medicine, might be turned to good account by the physician.
The experiments of Marcct and Brunton show that the infusion of digitalis has a poisonous effect on various plants, and, even in very small quantity, kills fishes, their auricles after death being found distended, their ventricles strongly contracted. On birds the effect of the infusion is to cause firm contraction of the left ventricle, and consequent excessive congestion of the lungs. A large turkey, according to M. Salerne (Hist, de I Academic. 1748, p. 120, 12mo, and p. 84, 4to ed.), walked as if intoxicated, in consequence of partaking once of foxglove leaves. Another turkey, weighing 7 ID, ate during 4 days about half a handful of the leaves, after which it refused nourishment, and in a couple of weeks died, its weight being reduced to 3 lb. Handfield Jones and Fuller have proved that the infusion produces upon the hearts of frogs and mammals effects similar to those observed in birds. The usual results of small and repeated doses of digitalis are contraction of the capillaries, and augmented arterial blood-pressure, with slower and more powerful cardiac systole, and an increase in the urinary secretions ; large or long-continued doses, besides causing nausea or vomiting, often accompanied by purging, occasion a slow or irregular pulse, dilatation of the capillaries, decrease in the rate of respiration, cold sweats, disordered vision, chilliness of the extremities, giddi ness, and great weakness, followed by convulsions and insensibility. Syncope is apt to occur on sudden changes of posture by patients fully under the influence of the drug. Its cumulative action, or unexpected production of alarmingly acute symptoms, may arise either from an increase in the dose, the elimination of the drug being constant, or from a check in the elimination, the dose remaining unaltered, hence the caution with which digitalis should be administered in cases where the renal functions are disturbed. The experiments of various physiologists have shown that digitalis, by stimulating the sympathetic ganglia of the heart, causes the contraction of jts musculo-motor fibres, this effect being at first masked by a similar action on the pncumogastric nerves. By effecting more complete emptying of the ventricles in cases of cardiac disturbance, digitalis improves the circulation, bringing about in the lungs a more thorough oxidation of the blood. The consequent increased nutrition of the heart is promotive of hyper trophy in that organ ; small doses of digitalis are therefore an assistance in hypertrophy following upon cardiac injury. In cases of dilatation of the heart, on the other hand, large doses are required. The continued use of the drug when the heart has become sufficiently hypcrtrophied may render ventricular action excessive. Digitalis calms excitement of the heart not by act- ing aa a narcotic or sedative but by stimulating its nerves, and enabling it to contract without laboured effort. In feeble con- ditions of the circulation it acts diuretically by increasing arterial tension, but its influence as a diuretic is not constant. Its efficacy in epilepsy appears to be limited by its action on the circula- tion. In enteric fever, erysipelas, and acute rheumatism, it has been employed to reduce temperature. Its use as a sedative in pneumonia, delirium tremens, and some other diseases lias been objected to on the ground that it cuts off the irritating blood supply only by an extreme degree of ventricular contractn. In arachnitis in children, in inflammation tending towards serous effusion, in dropsy, haemorrhage, cerebral anaemia, and occasionally in angina pectoris and nervous palpitation, it is a valuable remedv. Upon the uterus digitalis acts by stimulating the ganglia in which its motor power resides (V. Howship Dickenson, in Mcd. C/tir. Trans, vol. xxxix. Lond. 18C5). In poisoning by digitalis, aconite and probably also Calabar bean may be resorted to.
A. L. J. Bayle, Bib iothtgue de Therapeutique, toin. iii. pp. 1-372; Christison. A Treatise on Poisons, p. 88G, 4th ed. 1855; Sir II. Holland, Mcdicai Notes aii-1 RtJtectioHt, ch.ip. xxix. 3d ed., 1855; Trousseau et Pidoux, Traite de Thera- peutitjite, vol. ii. p. 754, 18fi2 ; T. L. Brunton, On Digitalis, 1868; J. Milncr Fothergill, Digitalis, its Mode of Action, and its Use, 1871; Pereira, Muteria Mtdiea, 1874: Garrod, Materia Afedica, 1874, G. W. Bulfour, Clinical Lectures < n the Diseases of the Heart anil Aorta, pp. 97 ai.d 304, 1876.
DIGNE, the chief town of the department of Basses- Alpes, in France, about 70 miles north-east of Marseilles, in 44 5 32" N. lat. and 6 14 G" E. long. It is built on a spur of the mountains jutting out into a gorge traversed by the Ble onne, which in winter is a formidable torrent, but in summer is almost dry ; and the neighbourhood is rich in orchards, which have long made the town famous in France for its preserved fruits and confections. The streets are narrow and tortuous, with the exception of the Boulevard Gassendi, at the upper end of which is a public garden, with a statue of the philosopher, who was born in the neighbouring village of Chantercier. The cathedral within the town is a buildingof very hybrid architecture, and is of less importance than the cathedral of Notre Dame, in the vicinity, which dates from the 12th century, and id numbered among the historic monuments of France. The thermal springs are not in much repute, and the bathing establishment is in a state of decay. Digne is identified with Dinia, the capital of the Avantici and Bodiontici. It early became an ecclesiastical see, and its bishops acquired the secular rank of barons of Lauzieres. In the 16th century it suffered on four separate occasions from the Huguenot soldiery ; and in modern history it is known as the place from which Napoleon issued his proclamation of March 1815. Population in 1872, 5300 in the town and 6877 in the commune.
town of the department of Cote-d Or in France, and formerly capital of the province of Burgundy, is situated at the foot of Mount Affrique, in a fertile plain, on the Burgundy canal, and at the confluence of the Ouche and Suzon, in 47 19 19" N. lat., and 5 2- 5" E. long. The streets are broad and well built of freestone, and there are fifteen squares ; an abundant supply of water is obtained from the vale of Suzon by means of a subterranean aque duct nearly eight miles in length. Among the more note worthy of the public edifices are the cathedral of St Be"nigne, in the Gothic style of the 13th century, with a spire erected in 1742; the church of Notre Dame built in 1331-1445, containing a group in stone, the Assumption of the Virgin, by Dubois, and a statue of the Black Virgin, celebrated in the Middle Ages ; the church of St Michel, of the 16th century ; the general hospital, founded by Otho III. in 1 206 ; the castle, com menced in 1478 by Louis XL, and finished in 1512 by Louis XII., once a state prison, in which the duchess of Maine, Mirabeau, the Chevalier d Eon, and Toussaint Louverture were confined, and since then a barrack for gendarmes ; and the old palace of the dukes of Burgundy, or hotel de ville, rebuilt between the end of the 17th and the end of the 18th century, in which are an art collection, the archives, a museum of natural history, a
school of arts, and the sa lle des gardes, containing the
