o to be a
specific action of lowering the reflex excitability of the spinal cord.

Digitalis is used in therapeutics exclusively for its action on the
circulation. In prescribing this drug it must be remembered that fully
three days elapse before it gets into the system, and thus it must
always be combined with other remedies to tide the patient over this
period. It must never be prescribed in large doses to begin with, as
some patients are quite unable to take it, intractable vomiting being
caused. The three days that must pass before any clinical effect is
obtained renders it useless in an emergency. A certain consequence of
its use is to cause or increase cardiac hypertrophy--a condition which
has its own dangers and ultimately disastrous consequences, and must
never be provoked beyond the positive needs of the case. But digitalis
is indicated whenever the heart shows itself unequal to the work it has
to perform. This formula includes the vast majority of cardiac cases.
The drug is contra-indicated in all cases where the heart is already
beating too slowly; in aortic incompetence--where the prolongation of
diastole increases the amount of the blood that regurgitates through the
incompetent valve; in chronic Bright's disease and in fatty degeneration
of the heart--since nothing can cause fat to become contractile.

DIGNE, the chief town of the department of the Basses Alpes, in S.E.
France, 14 m. by a branch line from the main railway line between
Grenoble and Avignon. Pop. (1906), town, 4628; commune, 7456. The Ville
Haute is built on a mountain spur running down to the left bank of the
Bleone river, and is composed of a labyrinth of narrow winding streets,
above which towers the present cathedral church, dating from the end of
the 15th century, but largely reconstructed in modern times, and the
former bishop's palace (now the prison). The fine Boulevard Gassendi
separates the Ville Haute from the Ville Basse, which is of modern date.
The old cathedral (Notre Dame du Bourg) is a building of the 13th
century, but is now disused except for funerals: it stands at the east
end of the Ville Basse. The neighbourhood of Digne is rich in orchards,
which have long made the town famous in France for its preserved fruits
and confections. It is the _Dinia_ of the Romans, and was the capital of
the Bodiontii. From the early 6th century at least it has been an
episcopal see, which till 1790 was in the ecclesiastical province