An Account of the Foxglove and Some of Its Medical Uses: With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases

This is the book that invented clinical pharmacology. In 1785, William Withering published his decade-long investigation into foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) as a treatment for dropsy, meticulously documenting his experiments with the kind of rigor we now associate with modern drug trials. What makes this text remarkable is not just its conclusions - that foxglove could effectively treat fluid accumulation in the body - but its methodology. Withering recorded dosages, patient responses, successes, and failures with scientific transparency unusual for his era. He collaborated with other physicians, warned against overgeneralizing from limited data, and emphasized the delicate balance between benefit and toxicity. The language is antiquated, the understanding of physiology long superseded, but the fundamental impulse - careful observation leading to effective treatment - remains the bedrock of medicine. This is less a textbook than a historical artifact of extraordinary significance: the moment when systematic drug testing began, and foxglove became digitalis, a word still spoken in hospitals today.