D is for Digitalis

In this episode, I explore the dark and fascinating history of digitalis, the powerful toxin derived from the foxglove plant. For centuries, foxglove has been admired for its beauty, growing wild across the British countryside and in cottage gardens, but hidden within its distinctive purple flowers is a substance capable of disrupting the human heart and causing death.

From its discovery as a revolutionary heart medication to its reputation as the perfect murder weapon, digitalis occupies a unique place in both medical history and true crime. I examine how the poison works, why it became so attractive to killers, and how its symptoms could easily be mistaken for natural illness, making murder incredibly difficult to detect.

This episode also explores the mysterious death of medieval ruler Cangrande della Scala, the notorious Foxglove Murders, healthcare killers who exploited access to medication, and the unsettling possibility that many victims of digitalis poisoning were never identified as murder victims at all.Was digitalis one of history's most effective poisons? And how many deaths attributed to heart failure may have been something far more sinister?

Join me as I uncover the history, science, folklore and true crime surrounding one of the world's most beautiful and deadly plants.

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Written and edited by Corinna Harrod with Holly Clarke. Artwork by Jessica Holmes.
Music: "The Mooche" by Duke Ellington (1928).

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