ira 
eee: 
oo it to be preferred before numerous “ expectorants.” It. 
CAMPANULACED. 323 
and is regarded by the natives as poisonous wherever the 
plant grows. Physiological experiments conducted by Herr 
von Rosen at Dorpat have shown that this plant has pro. 
perties exactly similar to those of Lobelia inflata. The physio. — 
logical action of poisonous doses of lobelia upon the carnivora 
and upon man is to cause death by paralysing the respiratory 
centre. Small doses first raise and then depress the blood pres- 
Sure; large doses paralyse the vasomotor centre and the peri- 
pheral ends of the vagi. (Attwood.) The effects produced by 
lobelia on man have been carefully studied by Barallier of 
Toulon, who found that after taking an infusion of 1] grain of 
_ the leaves in 400 grains of water, he felt a burning and rawness 
in the fauces, headache, and a sensation of constriction beneath 
_ the sternum; his pulse became weak, slow and intermittent, 
and there was diuresis. Larger doses produced general mus- 
cular weakness, vomiting, difficult breathing, cardiac depres- 
Sion, reduction of temperature and dilatation of the pupils. 
The action of lobelia is therefore similar to that of tobacco and 
: its alkaloid nicotine. (Barallier, Des effets physiol., Sc., de la 
= Lobelia inflata, Bull. de Therap., \xvi.) 
The chief medicinal value of lobelia is in the treatment of 
Ghia: whether the disease be purely spasmodic or associated 
with pulmonary emphysema, chronic bronchitis, heart disease, 
&c. It eliminates from the attack the bronchial spasm, which 
in the first-named affection constitutes the whole disease, and in 
_ the others is“a complication only. A fluid drachm of the tinc- 
_ ture should be given every hour, or, if the symptoms are 
urgent, every half hour, until relief is obtained, or the 
characteristic effects of the medicine are produced. _ Its efficacy 
_ In other diseases, as in whooping cough, will depend mainly 
upon the predominance of the nervous element im them, 
Whenever dyspnoea is due to inflammatory changes m_ the 
bronchia, or to the presence in these tubes of secreted matters, 
rather than to spasm, lobelia displays special virtues that 
of no more advantage in Sara laryngitis. than various 
—— ee is decidedly n fica- 
