If you had an acute congestive heart failure, they could bleed a pint of blood from you by opening up an arm vein, giving you a crude leaf preparation of digitalis and then giving you oxygen by tent.
Venn sat still, and his companion went hither and thither till he had gathered thirteen glowworms—as many as he could find in a space of four or five minutes—upon a fox-glove leaf which he pulled for the purpose.
And Mooney notes that, quote, the major problems he experienced seem to have developed from the improper administration of medicines, including digitalis or foxglove, perhaps laudanum and calomel, and maybe lobaline.
All of these, some of which I have used because digitalis, what we modernly use as digoxin, has been around for many centuries and is a cardiac medication, or at least was prescribed then.
But a lot of these, especially Digoxin, Digitalis, Laudanum, Calomel, I mean, you start combining these things, you're going to make somebody potentially slur their words or sedated or generally weak.