DIGGES

digges, west (1720-1786), english actor, made his first stage appearance in dublin in 1749 as jaffier in _venice preserved_; and both there and in edinburgh until 1764 he acted in many tragic roles with success. he was the original "young norval" in home's _douglas_ (1756). his first london appearance was as cato in the haymarket in 1777, and he afterwards played lear, macbeth, shylock and wolsey. in 1881 he returned to dublin and retired in 1784. digit (lat. _digitus_, finger), literally a finger or toe, and so used to mean, from counting on the fingers, a single numeral, or, from measuring, a finger's breadth. in astronomy a digit is the twelfth part of the diameter of the sun or moon; it is used to express the magnitude of an eclipse. digitalis. the leaves of the foxglove (q.v.), gathered from wild plants when about two-thirds of their flowers are expanded, deprived usually of the petiole and the thicker part of the midrib, bitter taste; and to preserve their properties they must be kept excluded from light in stoppered bottles. they are occasionally adulterated with the leaves of _inula conyza_, ploughman's spikenard, which may be distinguished by their greater roughness, their less divided margins, and their odour when rubbed; also with the leaves of _symphytum officinale_, comfrey, and of _verbascum thapsus_, great mullein, which unlike those of the foxglove have woolly upper and under surfaces. the earliest known descriptions of the foxglove are those given by leonhard fuchs and tragus about the middle of the 16th century, but its virtues were doubtless known to herbalists at a much remoter period. j. gerarde, in his _herbal_ (1597), advocates the use of foxglove for a variety of complaints; and john parkinson, in the _theatrum botanicum_, or _theater of plants_ (1640), and later w. salmon, in _the new london dispensatory_, similarly praised the remedy. digitalis was first brought prominently under the notice of the medical profession by dr w. withering, who, in his _account of the foxglove_ (1785), gave details of upwards of 200 cases chiefly dropsical, in which it was used. digitalis contains four important glucosides, of which three are cardiac stimulants. the most powerful is _digitoxin_ c34h54o11, an extremely poisonous and cumulative drug, insoluble in water. _digitalin_,