LOBELIA INFLATA.

Indian tobacco.

PLATE XIX.

In the United States there are many species of Lobelia, which are interesting for their beauty, singularity or use. We have few plants more elegant than the cardinal flower, and few more curious in structure than the Lobelia Dortmanna. In medicinal powers, the subject of this article is entitled to take precedence of the rest. It is an annual plant, found in fields and road sides, from Canada to the southern states. It flowers from

midsummer until the arrival of frosts.

The genus Lobelia has a five cleft calyx; a monopetalous, irregular corolla, with a cleft tube; the anthers cohering; the capsule two or three celled.

The species inflata is branching and hairy, with ovate, serrate leaves, and turgid capsules.

The connexion of the anthers into a tube has caused some ambiguity and difference of opinion, as to the place which this genus should occupy, in the Linnæan system. Linnæus placed it in his order Monogamia of the class Syngenesia. Most of our late botanists have very properly removed the plants of this order from the compound flowers, with which they have no natural affinity, to Pentandria, which place their number of stamens authorizes them to occupy. Pursh has placed the Lobelias under Monadelphia. The Natural order which contains them is the Campanacea of Linnæus and Jussieu.

The Lobelia inflata varies in height from six inches to two or three feet. The small plants are nearly simple, the large ones much branched. Root fibrous. Stem erect, in the full sized plant much branched, angular, very hairy. Leaves scattered, sessile, oval, serrate, veiny and hairy. Flowers in spikes or racemes, pedunculated, each one in the axil of a small leaf. Segments of the calyx linear, acute, standing on the germ, which is oval and striated. Corolla bluish purple, the tube prismatic and cleft above, the segments spreading, acute, the two upper ones lanceolate. the three lower ones oval. Anthers collected into an oblong, curved body, purple; filaments

white. Style filiform; stigma curved and inclosed by the anthers. Capsules two celled, turgid, oval, compressed, ten angled, covered with the calyx. Seeds numerous, small, oblong, brown.

The Lobelia inflata when broken, emits a milky juice. When chewed, it communicates to the mouth a burning, acrimonious sensation, not unlike the taste of green tobacco. It exhibits the following noticeable ingredients upon chemical examination. 1. An acrid principle. This is evident to the taste in the tincture, decoction, and distilled water. 2. Caoutchouc. Sulphuric ether dissolves more of the plant than alcohol, and acquires a higher colour. The solution in alcohol is scarcely rendered turbid by water, that in ether is disturbed by alcohol, and grows thick as the ether evaporates. 3. Extractive. No gummy or astringent qualities were manifested in my experiments.

The great acrimony of the leaves and capsules, combined with a narcotic property, appears to be the foundation of their medicinal power. Dr. Cutler informs us, that if the leaves be held for some time in the mouth, they produce giddiness and pain in the head, with a trembling agitation of the whole body, and at length bring on nausea and vomiting. These effects are analagous to

those, which the chewing or smoking of tobacco occasions in persons unaccustomed to its use.

In

When swallowed in substance, it excites very speedy vomiting, accompanied with distressing and long continued sickness, and even with dangerous symptoms, if the dose be large. A melancholy instance of death, occasioned by the use of this plant, in the hands of a quack, is detailed in the sixth volume of the Massachusetts Reports, in the trial of Samuel Thomson, an empiric practising in Beverly, for the murder of Ezra Lovett. this trial it appeared, that the patient, being confined by a cold, sent for the pretended physician, who gave him three powders of Lobelia in the course of half an hour, each of which vomited him violently, and left him in a great perspiration during the night. The next day two more powders were administered, each of which operated by vomiting and occasioned great distress. In like manner two other powders were given the subsequent day, leaving the patient in a state of great prostration. Several days after this, the physician came again, and finding his patient still worse, administered several more powders, which occasioned great distress, and at length ceased to operate. Finding that the stomach was not sensible to the emetic effect of the Lobelia,