324 CAMPANULACE:. 
cious in spasmodic laryngitis than most other remedies of the 
same class. In almost all cases in which distress in breathing © 
arises from a want of proper balance between the lungs and 
the heart, this medicine affords relief; as, for mstance, when 
the lungs are congested by mitral obstruction and there is a 
tendency to @dema of those organs; and, again, when the 
lungs are themselves diseased so as to interfere with the cardiac 
circulation, as occasionally happens even in tuberculous’ 
consumption, (Stillé and Maisch.) 
Description. —The leaves resemble those of the tobacco ; 
they are finely serrated and covered with simple hairs. The 
lower part of the stem is woody, an inch and a half or more in 
diameter, and almost solid ; the upper portion is a hollow tube 
ending in a crowded head of flower spikes; the latter are 
about a foot in length, and when the plant is in fruit, are 
thickly set with globular capsules about the size of a pea, to 
which a portion of the dry flower is often adherent; the cap- 
sules are two-celled, each cell containing a fleshy placenta. 
The seeds are numerous and very small (1-50th of an inch in 
length), oval, flattened, of a light brown colour, and marked 
with delicate lines. Several small] tubercles surround the site 
of the placental attachment. 
The whole plant when dry i is studded with small spots of 
resinous exudation, and is hot and acrid to the taste. The 
leaves and aerial parts of the fresh plant —. a white latex 
when broken, 
Chemical composition. —Herr von Rosen’s examination of the 
plant, supplied by one of us, showed it to contain two alkaloids; 
this led toa re-examination of Lobelia inflata, with the result 
that two similar alkaloids were found to be present in the 
latter plant. The discovery of von Rosen has been confirmed 
by J. U, and C, G. Lloyd (Pharm. Rundschau, 1887), but they 
describe the alkaloids somewhat differently ; one, for which 
they appropriate the name Lobeline, was obtained as a colour- 
less and odourless amorphous substance, non-hygroscopic, and 
apparently not affected by air; slightly soluble in Saket and 
