Re: Foxglove


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Posted by Andy clayton on July 23, 2005 at 16:48:59 from 195.92.168.168 user cousin_jack.

In Reply to: Re: Foxglove posted by John Nichols on July 22, 2005 at 23:24:54:

Some threads just wont lie down. My wife's father who was born in 1908 in Cornwall, told us that as a 5 year old, their class went out into the nearby countryside to pick Foxgloves for the soldiers in the trenches of the great war. It seems they were pulped to extract the juices to give the troops before they went over the top. As it made the heart beat faster it was considered a sort of performance enhancing drug. I suppose if the Germans had found out they would have demanded tests and a replay, or all subsequently captured ground to be forfit. Anyway I suspect its nature was known about by the chemists of the day, but as the soldiers were going to be machine gunned it didn't matter much either way.
Incidently, one of my wife's brothers fed the other one raw Rhubarb leaves as a baby, but they both survived. The baby's digestion couldn't cope with the leaves so they passed straight through. Rhubarb leaves are highly toxic... I'm told.


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