Foxglove
Digitalis, “finger-stall”
- Known today as
- Digitalis purpurea.
- Kind
- Plant, in 3 older authorities
- Constituents
- digitoxin, digoxin, gitoxin
- Poisoning
- Cardiac glycoside poisoning
- Earliest authority here
- William Withering (1741–1799)
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search
Revised October 1, 2026: Tradition, lore, modern assessment, and sources extended. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.
Deadly. Every part is poisonous to the heart.
Foxglove: what was it used for?
A violent purge and vomit in folk practice, used for dropsy and scrofula.
Foxglove: what does modern science say?
The source of digitalis and digoxin, which strengthen and slow the failing heart. William Withering’s Account of the Foxglove (1785) is a landmark of clinical pharmacology. Digoxin, isolated in 1930 from Digitalis lanata, is still prescribed for heart failure and atrial fibrillation, though less than it was; its dose lies close to its poison, and the nausea, yellow vision, and slowed heart of overdose are what Withering described. The plant has killed people who mistook its leaves for comfrey.
Foxglove: is it poisonous?
Yes, and it can kill. Every part is poisonous to the heart. Its poisoning is cardiac glycoside poisoning: Hours. Historical description, not medical advice; in a poisoning, call a poison centre.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- Mechanism
- The glycosides block the sodium-potassium pump of the heart cell, strengthening contraction and slowing conduction.
- Checked against ChEMBL
- Toxic dose
- The therapeutic and toxic doses of digoxin lie within a factor of two; a few leaves of the plant are dangerous.
- Syndrome
- Cardiac glycoside poisoning
- Standing
- Digoxin is on the WHO list of essential medicines, for heart failure and atrial fibrillation.
- Withering, W. (1785). An Account of the Foxglove. Verified against its record · doi:10.5962/bhl.title.3869
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Foxglove: what lore surrounds it?
Its English name is “folk’s glove,” the glove of the fairies, by one account; the Norwegians call it revbjelde, fox-bell. Withering’s informant was an old woman of Shropshire whose family receipt of some twenty herbs he reduced to the one that worked. Dr Gachet, who treated Van Gogh in 1890, is painted holding a foxglove, and the painter’s yellow haloes have been blamed, without proof, on digitalis.
Foxglove: what did the older authorities say?
- William Withering
- Learned of it from a Shropshire family receipt for dropsy, and over ten years worked out its dose and its danger.
- Leonhart Fuchs
- Named it Digitalis in his herbal of 1542, from the German Fingerhut, thimble, and gave it as a purge and for dropsy.
- The Welsh physicians
- The Physicians of Myddfai used foxglove outwardly in the thirteenth century, and in English folk medicine it was the great, dangerous remedy of the wise women for the dropsy.
Sources
- Withering, W. (1785). An Account of the Foxglove. Verified against its record · doi:10.5962/bhl.title.3869
- Withering, W. (1785). An Account of the Foxglove and Some of its Medical Uses. Verified against its record · doi:10.5962/bhl.title.3869
- Fuchs, L. (1542). De historia stirpium. Book, seen in reviews
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity
- Sources
- 3 cited: 2 verified against its record, 1 book, seen in reviews.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“Foxglove.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/foxglove.
- MLA
“Foxglove.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/foxglove. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Foxglove. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/foxglove
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See Also
Poisoned alike: cardiac glycoside poisoning
Oxymel, and oxymel of squill · Black hellebore · Squill · Yew · Toad · the syndrome, with all of them →
Nearby in the alphabet
Fox’s heart (The dried heart of a fox) · Fool’s webcap (A tawny webcap of European woods) · Frankincense (The resin of Boswellia sacra and related trees) · Foetid pills · Friar’s balsam (storax, balsam of tolu, and aloes, in spirit) · Fly agaric (white-spotted toadstool of fairy tales, of birch and pine woods) · Fu ling (the sclerotium of a fungus that grows on pines) · The fig hand (made as a gesture or carved as a charm)
Historical description, not medical advice.