Some things finally awaken in the garden, the columbines, some iris, a first little hedge rose, corn flowers, daisies, buttercups,

and the foxgloves.

A magnet to bees, this plant is actually highly toxic, but, used in the right amounts, can also be healing. (Don’t try at home…!) As a source of dioxin, it is used to treat cardiac arrhythmia, ever since British physician, William Withering, published his book, An Account of the Foxglove, in 1785.  He and subsequent healers used it for a variety of ailments, edema, epilepsy, hydrothorax (fluid in the pleural cavities) and phthisis pulmonalis (probably tuberculosis.)(Ref.)

Some people speculate that Vincent van Gogh used digitalis (the plant’s latin name) to treat his epileptic seizures towards the end of his life. The chemicals cause haziness of vision, or a yellow tinge to everything one sees, known as xanthopsia. Occasionally, points of light may appear to have coloured halos around them. Rarer still are effects on pupil size, such as dilation, constriction or even unequal-sized pupils.

“The effects of digitalis intoxication have been suggested as the cause of Van Gogh’s “yellow period” and the spectacular sky he painted in The Starry Night. More circumstantial evidence comes from the two portraits Van Gogh produced of his doctor, Paul Gachet, showing him holding a foxglove flower. One of Van Gogh’s self portraits also shows uneven pupils.

All of this is very interesting but it is pure speculation. Van Gogh may not have taken digitalis, and perhaps simply liked the colour yellow and the effect of swirling colours around the stars he painted. Unequal pupil size in his self-portrait may have been the result of a simple slip of the paintbrush.” (Ref.)

Then again, he was known to indulge in drinking absinthe. The alkaloids in Artemisia absinthium which is used to brew the liquor cause similar visual effects.

Who knows…

Vincent van Gogh Dr. Gachet (1890)

The bees don’t care….

Today’s poem is by John Lee Clark, a DeafBlind poet, essayist, and independent scholar from Minnesota. The German name for the plant is Fingerhut, which translates as thimble.

Music is some mellow folk songs today. Titled Foxgloves, of course.