Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) Hoodie

Popularly known as foxglove, digitalis is the source of the cardiac glycoside digitalis. Described in the English literature in 1785 by William Withering (the tale is that an old maid of Shropshire knew a cure for dropsy, or edema -- one finding in heart failure), digitalis has been used in the treatment of cardiac diseases since. Its use has declined as the therapeutic window (the range between a therapeutic response and toxicity) is quite narrow. In my early days as an internist, titrating patients with digitalis and recognizing how not to poison them was a skill that internists learned. Now, not so much -- better therapies for heart failure exist. The purple color here is striking. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitalis" ...