died on 6 October 1799. Botany In 1776, he published The botanical arrangement of all the vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain, an early and influential British Flora. It was the first in English based on the then new Linnaean taxonomy — a classification of all living things — devised by the Swedish botanist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778). At the time he was criticised for having produced a bowdlerised version of Linnaeus, deliberately omitting any references to sexual reproduction, out of a desire to protect 'female modesty', notably by 'A Botanical Society, at Lichfield' - almost always incorrectly named as The Botanical Society of Lichfield or the Lichfield Botanical Society. Withering explained on the title page and his introduction that he avoided being explicit to allow his book to be used without any problems by a wider audience and in particular women. However he found support for his position, and botany was considered a subject suitable for many women during the next century. A talented illustrator herself, his wife, Helena, sketched plants he collected. Withering wrote two more editions of this work in 1787 and 1792, in collaboration with fellow Lunar Society member Jonathan Stokes, and after his death his son (also William) published four more. It continued being published under various authors until 1877. Withering senior also carried out pioneering work into the identification of fungi and invented a folding pocket microscope for use on botanical field trips. He also introduced to the general audience the screw down plant press and the vasculum. In 1787 he was elected a Fellow of the Linnaean Society in recognition of his contribution to botany. Subsequently, the plant Witheringia solanacea was named in his honour, and he became known on the continent of Europe as "The English Linnaeus". The William Withering Chair in Medicine at the University of Birmingham Medical School is named after him, as is the medical school's annual William Withering Lecture. Discovery of digitalis Allegedly, Withering first learned of the use of digitalis in treating "dropsy" (œdema) from "Mother Hutton", an old woman who practised as a folk herbalist in Shropshire, who used the plant as part of a polyherbal formulation containing over 20 different ingredients to successfully treat this condition. Withering deduced that digitalis was the active ingredient in the formulation, and over the ensuing nine years he carefully tried out different preparations of various parts of the