Common Name: Foxglove
Family: Scrophulariaceae
Source: Prepared from the fresh leaves
Kingdom: Plant
Miasm: Sycotic/Syphilitic
Sphere of Action
Acts powerfully on the heart, circulation, liver, kidneys, and nervous system. A cardiac remedy affecting myocardium, vagal nerve, and blood vessels.
Key Clinical Indications
Heart Conditions:
- Slow, irregular, intermittent pulse
- Weak, dilated heart with blue face, cold extremities, and dyspnea
- Palpitation from slightest motion
- Feeling as if the heart will stop if the patient moves
- Mitral and aortic valve disease
Dropsy / Edema:
- Anasarca, especially of cardiac origin
- Swelling of legs, abdomen, face
- Dropsy with scanty, albuminous urine and slow pulse
Gastric and Liver Affections:
- Nausea with slow pulse
- Yellow-coated tongue, bitter taste, vomiting of bile
- Liver enlarged and tender, jaundice
- Ascites from heart/liver disease
Nervous Symptoms:
- Great anxiety, especially about the heart
- Fear that the heart will stop beating
- Sudden fainting on motion
Characteristic Symptoms
- Pulse slow, intermittent, weak, irregular
- Blueness of skin and lips
- Vertigo on rising or slightest motion
- Sensation as if heart would cease beating
- Must lie on back with head high
- Face bluish, cyanotic, extremities cold
Mental Symptoms
- Anxiety and fear of death
- Low-spirited, melancholy
- Desires to be left alone
Modalities
|
Worse From |
Better From |
|
Sitting up, motion, warmth |
Lying on back, cold air |
- Scanty, dark, albuminous urine
- Urine may contain sediment, or be suppressed
Potency & Dosage
- Common potencies: 3X, 6C, 30C
- Lower potencies for physiological effect (heart), higher for functional conditions
- Caution in repetition due to toxic nature
Relationships
|
Complementary |
Compare With |
Antidotes |
|
Apocynum, Crataegus |
Adonis, Kalmia, Convallaria, Lachesis |
Camphor, Nux vomica |
Mnemonic for
Digitalis Purpurea
“D-I-G-I-T-A-L-I-S”
- Dyspnea with slightest movement
- Irregular, slow pulse
- Great fear heart will stop
- Intense weakness with cyanosis
- Thirstless but dry mouth
- Anasarca with scanty urine
- Lying on back relieves
- Intermittent pulse
- Swelling from heart failure
One-Line Summary
Digitalis is a powerful heart remedy for slow, irregular pulse, faintness, cyanosis, and heart failure with dropsy and fear the heart will stop.
J.H.CLARKE
- Despondency; fearful; anxious about the future.
- Dullness of sense.
- Every shock strikes in epigastrium.
- Melancholia, dull lethargic with slow pulse.
S.R.PHATAK
- Anxious about the future.
- Sadness; with sleeplessness, from unhappy love; from music.
- Lascivious thoughts in old men, with enlarged prostate.
- Fearful.
- Feels as if he would fly to pieces.
- Fear of suffocation at night.
- Wants to be alone.
- Despondent.
- Every shock is felt in epigastrium.
- Great anxiety like from troubled conscience.
Tags
MATERIA MEDICA