End of the Oldest Controversy in Medicine — Are We Ready to Conclude the Debate on Digitalis?

The role of digitalis in treating cardiovascular disease has been at the center of the oldest continuing controversy in the history of medicine. Ever since its clinical introduction by William Withering more than 200 years ago,1 physicians have disagreed fiercely about the drug's efficacy and safety, with some advocating its widespread use and others recommending that its application be severely limited or abandoned entirely. Evidence from clinical studies published during the past decade has heightened the sophistication of the debate, but not diminished its intensity.Advocates of digitalis have argued that the drug should be used because it has been . . .