1920 – 1939
- Foxglove or
digitalis purpurea was recognized in Europe already in the 16th
century by a German botanist. However it took two hundred years before a first
good report of the medical qualities of digitalis appeared in the year of 1795.
The report which was published by William Withering was a very capable report
and without a match, before the clinical trials in the 20th century.
- Originally
digitalis or foxglove had been used to many different diseases. Few examples of
its use are for example using it as an epilepsy medicine and to medicate the
hindrance of rickets.
- Withering was the first one who gave digitalis essence and infusions to patients, which featured classical symptoms of inferior activity in the heart. Despite the fact that dangerous substances like zinc sulphate and mercury chloride were given with the digitalis, many of the patients survived this treatment and even recovered from their disease. All of the patients however were not that lucky and the use of digitalis got much less after Withering died in 1799. Partly the lack of use for digitalis was also because the doctors were giving digitalis to every disease that there was and when the patients didn’t recover, the faith to the foxglove was starting to get much less and the plant was forgotten until to the early part of the 20th century.
- The lack of
diagnostic tools slowed pharmaceutical development considerably and this was
also the case with digitalis. Certain type of arrhythmia was recognized
assuredly in 1905 and when to this arrhythmia was given digitalis, the
arrhythmia ceased. Even after these results, the actual active substance and the
question that to which kind of diseases digitalis could be given, remained a
mystery all the way to the year 1929. During the years of 1925 to 1929 Adolf
Windaus and his colleague managed to subtract the two most important substances
from the digitalis purpurea: Digitalis and digitoxin.
- The greatest and perhaps the most remarkable work to process the foxglove into a medical use was made by Sydney Smith from the Wellcome Company (GlaxoSmithKline today). Smith and his team managed to isolate a very pure and important substance, digoxin from the digital lana, which was a one form of foxglove. In the year of 1930 Wellcome Company launched a product with a name of Lanoxin, which contained digoxin.. Lanoxin was a first medicine for inferior activity in the heart and is still in use today.
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