Blossom. The bellying part on the inside sprinkled with spots like little eyes. Leaves wrinkled. Linn.

Blossom. Rather tubular than bell-shaped, bulging on the under side, purple; the narrow tubular part at the base, white. Upper lip sometimes slightly cloven.

Chives. Threads crooked, white. Tips yellow.

Pointal. Seed-bud greenish. Honey-cup at its base more yellow. Summit cloven.

S. Vess. Capsule not quite so long as the cup.

Root. Knotty and fibrous.

Stem. About 4 feet high; obscurely angular; leafy.

Leaves. Slightly but irregularly serrated, wrinkled; dark green above, paler underneath. Lower leaves egg-shaped; upper leaves spear-shaped. Leaf-stalks fleshy; bordered.

Flowers. Numerous, mostly growing from one side of the stem and hanging down one over another. Floral-leaves sitting, taper-pointed. The numerous purple blossoms hanging down, mottled within; as wide and nearly half as long as the finger of a common-sized glove, are sufficient marks whereby the most ignorant may distinguish this from every other British plant; and the leaves ought not to be gathered for use but when the plant is in blossom.

Place. Dry, gravelly or sandy soils; particularly on sloping ground. It is a biennial, and flowers from the middle of June to the end of July.

I have not observed that any of our cattle eat it. The root, the stem, the leaves, and the flowers have a bitter herbaceous taste, but I don't perceive that nauseous bitter which has been attributed to it.

This plant ranks amongst the LURIDÆ, one of the Linnæan orders in a natural system. It has for congenera, Nicotiana, Atropa, Hyoscyamus, Datura, Solanum, &c. so that from the knowledge we possess of the virtues of those plants, and reasoning from botanical analogy, we might be led to guess at something of its properties.

I intended in this place to have traced the history of its effects in diseases from the time of Fuchsius, who first describes it, but I have been anticipated in this intention by my very valuable friend, Dr. Stokes of Stourbridge, who has lately sent me the following

Historical View of the Properties of Digitalis.

Fuchsius in his hist. stirp. 1542, is the first author who notices it. From him it receives its name of Digitalis, in allusion to the German name of Fingerhut, which signifies a finger-stall, from the blossoms resembling the finger of a glove.

Sensible Qualities. Leaves bitterish, very nauseous. Lewis Mat. med. i. 342.

Sensible Effects. Some persons, soon after eating of a kind of omalade, into which the leaves of this, with those of several other plants, had entered as an ingredient, found themselves much indisposed, and were presently after attacked with vomitings. Dodonæus pempt. 170.

It is a medicine which is proper only for strong constitutions, as it purges very violently, and excites excessive vomitings. Ray. hist. 767.

Boerhaave judges it to be of a poisonous nature, hist. plant. but Dr. Alston ranks it among those indigenous vegetables, "which, though now disregarded, are medicines of great virtue, and scarcely inferior to any that the Indies afford." Lewis Mat. med. i. p. 343.

Six or seven spoonfuls of the decoction produce nausea and vomiting, and purge; not without some marks of a deleterious quality. Haller hist. n. 330 from Aerial Infl. p. 49, 50.

The following is an abridged Account of its Effects upon Turkeys.

M. Salerne, a physician at Orleans, having heard that several turkey pouts had been killed by being fed with Foxglove leaves, instead of mullein, he gave some of the same leaves to a large vigorous turkey. The bird was so much affected that he could not stand upon his legs, he appeared drunk, and his excrements became reddish. Good nourishment restored him to health in eight days.

Being then determined to push the experiment further, he chopped some more leaves, mixed them with bran, and gave them to a vigorous turkey cock which weighed seven pounds. This bird soon appeared drooping and melancholy; his feathers stared, his neck became pale and retracted. The leaves were given him for four days, during which time he took about half a handful. These leaves had been gathered about eight days, and the winter was far advanced. The excrements, which are naturally green and well formed, became, from the first, liquid and reddish, like those of a dysenteric patient.

The animal refusing to eat any more of this mixture which had done him so much mischief, I was obliged to feed him with bran and water only; but notwithstanding this, he continued drooping, and without appetite. At times he was seized with convulsions, so strong as to throw him down; in the intervals he walked as if drunk; he did not attempt to perch, he uttered plaintive cries. At length he refused all nourishment. On the fifth or sixth day the excrements became as white as chalk; afterwards yellow, greenish, and black. On the eighteenth day he died, greatly reduced in flesh, for he now weighed only three pounds.

On opening him we found the heart, the lungs, the liver, and gall-bladder shrunk and dried up; the stomach was quite empty, but not deprived of its villous coat. Hist. de l'Academ. 1748. p. 84.

Epilepsy.—"It hath beene of later experience found also to be effectual against the falling sicknesse, that divers have been cured thereby; for after the taking of the Decoct. manipulor. ii. c. polypod. quercin. contus. ℥iv. in cerevisia, they that have been troubled with it twenty-six years, and have fallen once in a weeke, or two or three times in a moneth, have not fallen once in fourteen or fifteen moneths, that is until the writing hereof."

Parkinson, p. 654.

Scrophula.—"The herb bruised, or the juice made up into an ointment, and applied to the place, hath been found by late experience to be availeable for the King's Evill." Park. p. 654.

Several hereditary