a proprietary medicine, but this use of the medicine was familiar a hundred and fifty years ago. In James's Dispensatory it is stated that cubebs are "recommended in hoarseness and loss of voice, especially when the tonsils are stuffed and obstructed."
Digitalis.
Foxglove, the common and ancient name of this handsome plant, is believed to be a corruption of a still older name, Foxes' glew, or Foxes' music, in allusion to an instrument consisting of a series of bells hanging from one support. The Norwegian name of the plant is Rev-bjelda, fox-bells. A pretty fancy, but one which is not supported by evidence, is that the original name was folks' glew, or fairy bells. In Scotland the flower is called bloody fingers, and sometimes dead men's bells; in France, gants de notre Dame, and doigts de la Vierge. The German popular name is finger-hut, finger hood or thimble, and the Latin term, digitalis, coined by Fuchs of Tubingen about 1550, was intended to be the equivalent of that designation.
The medical history of the fox-glove is somewhat varied. It appears to have been used as an ingredient in external applications by old herbalists, principally for scrofulous complaints. Gerard, Parkinson, and Salmon, who wrote in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, extol its virtues and mention also its employment internally for the falling sickness or epilepsy. Parkinson quotes an Italian saying concerning it that it is a salve for all sores. It found a place in the London Pharmacopœia of 1650 and in several subsequent issues.
But fox-glove was always a medicine with a popular rather than a professional reputation until Dr. William
