Digitalis - or putting my toddler into heartblock

My family and I have recently moved to a different part of the country and while I wait for the paperwork to go through to start a new job I am getting on with planting a garden in our new home.  I came home with seeds - pansies, sunflowers, violets and foxglove all of which looked very pretty on the packet and was planting them while my toddler enthusiastically "helped" (as toddlers do).

It wasn't until I was about ready to plant and looking at the packet for a second time that a bell started ringing in my head.  I turned it over and sure enough, there in very small print was the warning that foxglove was poisonous if ingested.  With the small tornado enthusiastically eating grass beside me, the seeds were quickly disposed of in the bin.

So what is foxglove, apart from quite pretty?

(public domain image sourced from wikipedia)

Asthma cigarettes

Some of you may have seen this particular image doing the rounds a while back.  I'm guilty of posting it myself without comment to my facebook page because, you know, smoking and asthma!  Funny!

As with every meme that does the rounds on facebook, however, the wider historical context of this one probably got a little bit missed in the details. 

So let's have a little bit of a chat about 'Asthma cigarettes'.