LOBELIA 



417 



in water, readily soluble in chloroform and hot alcohol; it is a violent irritant 

 poison; its alcoholic solution is colored red by warm sulphuric acid; its car- 

 bolic acid solution, crimson, rapidly changing to scarlet. There is also present 

 ecballin (soft, yellow, acrid), hydroelaterin, and elaterid. 



ELATERINUM (U.S.P. IX). Elaterin. Exhaust elaterium with chloroform; 

 add ether ; white crystals deposit immediately. Wash with ether and recrystallize 

 from chloroform. This principle is odorless and crystalline, is bitter and acrid in 

 taste. No weighable ash remains on incinerating o.i Gm. of Elaterin. 



ACTION AND USES. Elaterin is a powerful hydragogue cathartic, used in the 

 treatment of dropsy. Dose: %Q to ^2 S T - (-3 to 0.005 Gm.). Prepara- 

 tion: Trituratio Elaterini (10 per cent.). Dose:. ^ gr. (0.030 Gm.). 



FIG." 245. Ecballium elaterium Branch with flowers. 



CAMPANULACE^E. Campanula Family 



Herbs or shrubbery plants, with acrid, milky juice, alternate leaves, and 

 scattered flowers, corolla 5-lobed. Fruit a one- to several-celled capsule. Many 

 species of the tribe Lobelia? are acrid-narcotic poisons. 



552. LOBELIA. LOBELIA 

 INDIAN TOBACCO 



The dried leaves and tops of Lobe'lia infla'ta Linn6 (fam. Lobeliaceae U.S:P. IX), 



without the presence or admixture of more than 10 per cent, of stems or 



other foreign matter. 



BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS. Stems much branched from an annual root, 

 pubescent; leaves ovate or oblong, gradually diminishing into leaf -like bracts. 

 Capsule inferior. 



RELATED SPECIES. Lobelia syphilitica (great lobelia), Lobelia cardinalis 



(cardinal plant). 

 HABITAT. United States. 



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