Foxgloves, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and Embroidery

About two years ago someone very close to me was diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy with obstruction (HOCM). This is a thickening of the heart muscle and usually hits the press when a footballer or athlete drops dead without warning (although it must be said that this is rare, I believe only about 1% of HOCM sufferers are at risk of sudden cardiac arrest). HOCM is a genetic disease so a diagnosis affects the whole family, tests have to be arranged and other factors have to be considered such as life insurance and mortgages. For awhile it was difficult to make sense of things, then I started sewing and so began Love in Idleness.

I am not great at gardening but a couple of years ago my Mum gave me some foxglove seeds from the plants in their garden. My daughter and I planted them in the front garden and the next spring we had such a beautiful display of not only pink but pale peach colour foxgloves. It was around this time we received a newsletter from the Cardiomyopathy Association with an interesting article about the use of digitalis in the treatment of heart disease http://www.cardiomyopathy.org/index.php?id=3538 

Most people know that the foxglove is a poisonous plant but it can also save lives. In recent years cardiologists had moved away from digitalis as studies had suggested it didn't help to prolong life, but now they are finding that this study may have been wrong and are once again recommending it for patients with heart failure.

On a lighter note I recently found out that the foxglove is the county flower of Monmouthshire, the county I now live in.

The name foxglove is a corruption of the word ‘folk’s glove’ and the plant has long been associated with the fairy folk. Other names include fairies’ petticoats, fairy caps and fairies’ dresses. It is rumoured that if you see a foxglove bending over, there may be a fairy hiding in one of the bells.

The name Digitalis  means ‘finger length’, and this name is said to have been given to the plant by the German botanist Leonard Fuchs in his Herbal, which was published in 1542. The name foxglove was first recorded in C14, however, in Scotland it is sometimes called bloody fingers or dead men’s bells due to the plant being poisonous.