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Withering
William Withering FRS (17 March 1741 – 6 October 1799) was an English botanist, geologist, chemist, physician and first systematic investigator of the bioactivity of digitalis. Withering was born in Wellington, Shropshire, the son of a surgeon. He trained as a physician and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. He worked at Birmingham General Hospital from 1779. The story is that he noticed a person with dropsy (swelling from congestive heart failure) improve remarkably after taking a traditional herbal remedy; Withering became famous for recognising that the active ingredient in the mixture came from the foxglove plant. The active ingredient is now known as digoxin, after the plant's scientific name. In 1785, Withering published ''An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses'', which contained reports on clinical trials and notes on digitalis's effects and toxicity. Biography Born in England, Withering attended Edinburgh Medical School ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Society
The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly between 1765 and 1813 in Birmingham. At first called the Lunar Circle, "Lunar Society" became the formal name by 1775. The name arose because the society would meet during the full moon, as the extra light made the journey home easier and safer in the absence of street lighting. The members cheerfully referred to themselves as ''"lunaticks"'', a pun on lunatics. Venues included Erasmus Darwin's home in Lichfield, Matthew Boulton's home, Soho House, Bowbridge House in Derbyshire, and Great Barr Hall. Membership and status The Lunar Society evolved through various degrees of organisation over a period of up to fifty years, but was only ever an informal group. No constitution, minutes, publications or membership lists survive from any period, and evidence of i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digitalis
''Digitalis'' ( or ) is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennial plants, shrubs, and biennials, commonly called foxgloves. ''Digitalis'' is native to Europe, western Asia, and northwestern Africa. The flowers are tubular in shape, produced on a tall spike, and vary in colour with species, from purple to pink, white, and yellow. The scientific name means "finger". The genus was traditionally placed in the figwort family, Scrophulariaceae, but phylogenetic research led taxonomists to move it to the Veronicaceae in 2001. More recent phylogenetic work has placed it in the much enlarged family Plantaginaceae. The best-known species is the common foxglove, '' Digitalis purpurea''. This biennial is often grown as an ornamental plant due to its vivid flowers which range in colour from various purple tints through pink and purely white. The flowers can also possess various marks and spottings. Other garden-worthy species include ''D. ferruginea'', ''D. grandiflora'', ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congestive Heart Failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, and leg swelling. The shortness of breath may occur with exertion or while lying down, and may wake people up during the night. Chest pain, including angina, is not usually caused by heart failure, but may occur if the heart failure was caused by a heart attack. The severity of the heart failure is measured by the severity of symptoms during exercise. Other conditions that may have symptoms similar to heart failure include obesity, kidney failure, liver disease, anemia, and thyroid disease. Common causes of heart failure include coronary artery disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, valvular heart disease, excessive alcohol consumption, infection, and cardiomyopathy. These cause heart failure by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Priestley Riots
The Priestley Riots (also known as the Birmingham Riots of 1791) took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets were religious dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Joseph Priestley. Both local and national issues stirred the passions of the rioters, from disagreements over public library book purchases, to controversies over Dissenters' attempts to gain full civil rights and their support of the French Revolution. The riots started with an attack on the Royal Hotel, Birmingham—the site of a banquet organised in sympathy with the French Revolution. Then, beginning with Priestley's church and home, the rioters attacked or burned four Dissenting chapels, twenty-seven houses, and several businesses. Many of them became intoxicated by liquor that they found while looting, or with which they were bribed to stop burning homes. A small core could not be bribed, however, and remained sober. The rioters bur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave-trade abolitionist, inventor, and poet. His poems included much natural history, including a statement of evolution and the relatedness of all forms of life. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family, which includes his grandsons Charles Darwin and Francis Galton. Darwin was a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a discussion group of pioneering industrialists and natural philosophers. He turned down an invitation from George III to become Physician to the King. Early life and education Darwin was born in 1731 at Elston Hall, Nottinghamshire, near Newark-on-Trent, England, the youngest of seven children of Robert Darwin of Elston (1682–1754), a lawyer and physician, and his wife Elizabeth Hill (1702–97). The name Erasmus had been used by a number o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Cullen
William Cullen FRS FRSE FRCPE FPSG (; 15 April 17105 February 1790) was a Scottish physician, chemist and agriculturalist, and professor at the Edinburgh Medical School. Cullen was a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment: He was David Hume's physician, and was friends with Joseph Black, Henry Home, Adam Ferguson, John Millar, and Adam Smith, among others. He was President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (1746–47), President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1773–1775) and First Physician to the King in Scotland (1773–1790). He also assisted in obtaining a royal charter for the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, resulting in the formation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783. Cullen was a beloved teacher, and many of his students became influential figures. He kept in contact with many of his students, including Benjamin Rush, a central figure in the founding of the United States of America; John Morgan, wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digoxin
Digoxin (better known as Digitalis), sold under the brand name Lanoxin among others, is a medication used to treat various heart conditions. Most frequently it is used for atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, and heart failure. Digoxin is one of the oldest medications used in the field of cardiology. It works by increasing myocardial contractility, increasing stroke volume and blood pressure, reducing heart rate, and somewhat extending the time frame of the contraction. Digoxin is taken by mouth or by injection into a vein. Digoxin has a half life of approximately 36 hours given at average doses in patients with normal renal function. It is excreted mostly unchanged in the urine. Common side effects include breast enlargement with other side effects generally due to an excessive dose. These side effects may include loss of appetite, nausea, trouble seeing, confusion, and an irregular heartbeat. Greater care is required in older people and those with poor kidney function. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birmingham General Hospital
Birmingham General Hospital was a teaching hospital in Birmingham, England, founded in 1779 and closed in the mid-1990s. History Summer Lane In 1765, a committee for a proposed hospital, formed by John Ash and supported by Sir Lister Holte, 5th Baronet, the Earl of Bradford, Samuel Garbett, Sir Henry Gough, Charles Adderley, Matthew Boulton, John Baskerville, Sampson Lloyd and others, purchased: from a Mrs Dolphin, for £120 per acre. (Walmore Lane is now Lancaster Street.) However, work to erect the new hospital on that land stopped through lack of funds in 1766. Eventually, much of its funds came from the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, the first of which was held over three days in September 1768, and which continued to fund the hospital into the 20th century. The hospital finally opened on 20 September 1779, giving its name to Hospital Street. About 200 patients were treated in its first three months of operation, even though the 40 beds were fewer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted experiments in electricity and other areas of science. He was a close friend of, and worked in close association with Benjamin Franklin involving electricity experiments. Priestley is credited with his independent discovery of oxygen by the thermal decomposition of mercuric oxide, having isolated it in 1774. During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of carbonated water, his writings on electricity, and his discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). Priestley's determination to defend phlogiston theory and to reject what would become the chemical revolution eventually left him isolated within the scientific community. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edgbaston Hall
Edgbaston Hall () is a country house (albeit now in the middle of the city) in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, England. Description and current usage Since 1936, thanks to negotiations initiated by The Birmingham Civic Society with the owner, Calthorpe Estates, it has been the clubhouse for Edgbaston Golf Club. Edgbaston Hall, and its lodge house, are Grade II listed buildings. The grounds, featuring Edgbaston Pool, are now divided into an 18-hole golf course and a nature reserve. History Early in the Civil War, Edgbaston Hall, along with Hawkesley House, now the site of a council housing estate in Longbridge, was a stronghold of Colonel John Fox, the so-called "Jovial Tinker". The Edgbaston Garrison musters from August 19, 1645 to April 30, 1646, can be found among the accounts of the Warwickshire County Committee, which was the Parliamentary Committee of accounts for the County, along with musters, warrants, levy assessments and other documents submitted by field officers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edgbaston Hall 02
Edgbaston () is an affluent suburban area of central Birmingham, England, historically in Warwickshire, and curved around the southwest of the city centre. In the 19th century, the area was under the control of the Gough-Calthorpe family and the Gillott family who refused to allow factories or warehouses to be built in Edgbaston, thus making it attractive for the wealthier residents of the city. It then came to be known as "where the trees begin". One of these private houses is grade one listed and open to the public. The majority of Edgbaston that falls under the B15 postcode finds itself being part of the Calthorpe Estate. The estate is an active conservation area, and it is here that the areas most prized properties are situated. The exclusivity of Edgbaston is down to its array of multi-million listed Georgian and Victorian villas, making it one of the most expensive postcodes outside of London. Edgbaston boasts facilities such as Edgbaston Cricket Ground, a Test m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
