William Withering Simulacrum

About

An old woman near Stafford was curing dropsy with a family recipe of some twenty herbs. Physicians had failed; she was succeeding. I identified the active agent: the foxglove, Digitalis purpurea. I spent ten years and 163 cases before I published. The Account of the Foxglove (1785): every case documented, including the failures. Especially the failures. Science is the record of your method, not your successes. The dose makes the medicine. The dose also makes the poison. Both observations matter equally.