Digitalis Glycosides [antikvár]

PrefaceIt is much easier to write upon a disease than upon a remedy. The former is in the hands of nature, and a faithful observer, with an eye of tolerable judgment, cannot fail to delineate a likeness. The latter will ever be subject to the whims, the inaccuracies, and the blunders of mankind.An Account of the Foxglove (1785) Wilham Withering, M.D.Two hundred years after the publication of Withering's classic treatise on the clinical use of digitalis, the above quotation remains a graceful apology on behalf of all who take pen to hand on the subject of clinical therapeutics. Withering's own trepidations are further reflected in the quotation from the Ar5 Poetica of Horace that he chose for the frontispiece of his monograph: "nonumque prematur in annum." Freely translated, "Let it be suppressed (or held back) until the ninth year," this constituted Horace's admonition to poets to reflect on their work for nine years before publication, and was apropos of the fact that Withering had studied the pharmacology of digitalis for a similar period of time before publishing his famous monograph. To be sure, his active practice as a physician and his broadly based interests in botany, geology, chemistry, and social history* must have left him scant time in which to write up his pharmaceutical and clinical observations. Nevertheless, one can only marvel at his powers of observation and his dedication to the objective reporting of his findings. Withering was clearly a pioneer among a new* Krickler DM: The foxglove, "The old woman from Shropshire" and William Withering. J Am Coll Cardiol 5 (Suppl A): 3A-9A, 1985IX