IN 1919, Pardee attempted to assess the daily maintenance requirements of digitalis.1 He administered digitalis to patients in small repetitive doses until toxicity occurred. Digitalis was then withheld for some days and the patients were again given digitalis until toxicity developed. He calculated that the amount required to achieve toxicity the second time minus that required the first time ...

Gary Eggleston method of administration of digitalis is based upon using digitalis standardised in Cat-units. A cat-unit of digitalis is the weight of dry ^rug in milligrams required to kill one kilogram of cat when an aqueous infusion of it is slowly injected intravenously. The Cary Eggleston dosage, to produce c?mplete digitalisation, finds it necessary to give one Cat-unit of digitalis for e...

Stimulated whole saliva was collected from 118 subjects: 36 were not receiving digitalis; 40 received digitalis but were nontoxic; 14 were digitalis-toxic; 24 had impaired renal function; and four subjects were followed during the administration of digitalis. Saliva calcium and potassium products in the digitalis-toxic group were significantly higher than in the nontoxic group. Subjects with im...

BACKGROUND Digitalis glycosides augment cardiopulmonary baroreceptor mechanisms in animals. This could result from inotropic actions or from direct sensitization of cardiac mechanoreceptors. METHODS AND RESULTS To determine if digitalis has similar actions in humans and to evaluate the mechanisms involved, we measured muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA; microneurography) during unloading...

The effect of digitalis therapy on 4-month posthospital cardiac mortality was investigated in 812 patients who survived the hospital phase of acute myocardial infraction. A stepwise multiple logistic regression analysis was used to identify variables associated with increased mortality and to adjust for differences in confounding variables between digitalis and nondigitalis patients. The major ...

Cardiac glycosides have played a prominent role in the therapy of congestive heart failure since William Withering codified their use in his late 18th century monograph on the efficacy of the leaves of the common foxglove plant (Digitalis purpurea). Despite their widespread acceptance into medical practice in the ensuing 200 years, both the efficacy and the safety of this class of drugs continu...

SUMMARY Prior to consideration of the effects of digitalis compounds on ionic exchange the basic mechanisms of active Na+ and K+ transport are discussed. It is generally accepted that digitalis is a specific inhibitor of the Na+-K+ activated ATPase located primarily in the sarcolemmal membrane. Present evidence supports the concept that positive inotropic effects of digitalis are not seen unles...

In a previous paper (1) it was shown that digitalis in dogs caused a fall in venous pressure at the time when the minute volume flow of blood was diminished. This fall in venous pressure, and hence in return flow of blood to the heart, was correlated with a peripheral vasocontrictor action of the digitalis. It was indicated that constriction of the hepatic veins was the major factor in causing ...

A comparison was made of the time of onset and duration of labour in 22 women taking digitalis and in 64 women who were not. Spontaneous labour occurred more than one week earlier and lasted about half as long in the patients taking digitalis. The likely explanation for this difference is that digitalis has a direct action on the myometrium.