Charles Darwin (1758–1778) and the history of the early use of digitalis

The evidence which I have just summarized establishes priority of publication concerning the action of digitalis for Erasmus Darwin, but on every other ground, Withering deserves full credit for the discovery. Charles Darwin, the medical student, had been informed of its action by his father and had attempted to account for it on the basis of improvement of lymphatic drainage. But the work, accomplished by the first Charles Darwin is less significant than the abundant evidence of his intellectual ability and precocity, and I have ventured to lay the details of his career before you because of their intrinsic interest and in the hope that the information will serve in a small way to clarify the unsolved problem of the relation of nature to nurture in establishing mental traits and capacities.

An abstract of a paper read January 10, 1934, at the meeting of the Section of Historical and Cultural Medicine, New York Academy of Medicine. The full text with illustrations, contemporary letters and bibliography will be published separately as a brief monograph.

From the Yale University School of Medicine.

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