Mother Hutton
Mother Hutton, also known as Mrs. Hutton, old mother Hutton and "the old woman from Shropshire", was a mythical English character, fabricated in 1928 for marketing purposes by a pharmaceutical company, Parke-Davis, that manufactured digitalis, a drug used to treat dropsy. The story involved real-life physician William Withering, who appeared to have learned of the value of the purple foxglove in the treatment of dropsy from 'Old Mother Hutton', the Shropshire herb-woman whom he met in Stafford or Birmingham and to whom he gave gold sovereigns for the information, as depicted hypothetically in the painting by William Meade Prince (1893-1951). However, he never mentioned a Mother Hutton in his works and a number of dates have since been found to be inconsistent. Story Mother Hutton, also sometimes referred to as 'Mrs. Hutton', 'old mother Hutton' and 'the old woman from Shropshire', has for many years been popularly known as the 18th-century herbalist, physician and pharmacist, from Shropshire, who discovered by experimentation that foxglove could be used to treat dropsy. She added it and a variety of other herbs to a specially brewed tea, which she gave out as a remedy to those who needed it. One popular story tells of