Foxglove Plant

The foxglove (Digitalis purputea) was discovered to have a beneficial effect on some of the symptoms of heart disease many hundreds of years ago.

An extract of the plant has been in use since the eighteenth century, but it has always been recognized as being dangerous in overdosage.

 Pharmaceutical chemists were able to isolate active elements in foxglove extracts, which enabled them more accurately to prescribe the drugs for control of heart disease.

But Digitalis, the original extract of foxglove, still has its adherents in medical practice, who prefer it to the more refined alternatives, suspecting that the process of refinement has removed some part of the efficacy of the original.