ON LOBELIA INFLATA. 
99 
and progress of a sect in our community, who style themselves 
Thomsonians, from being the followers of Samuel Thomson, 
the empiric above alluded to. It stands pre-eminent amongst 
their remedial agents, and is believed by them to be almost a spe- 
cific in a variety of diseases. Whether it is really deserving 
of the high character which they have given to it remains to 
be determined. 
The very fact of its having been thus brought into notice, 
its powerful and perturbating qualities, and also the numerous 
and apparently well authenticated eulogiums which have been 
pronounced upon it as a remedial agent, seem to warrant a 
more careful investigation of its properties, than has hitherto 
been made, by physicians or scientific experimenters. 
BOTANICAL HISTORY. 
The genus Lobelia is distinguished by a five-cleft calyx, 
five parted corolla, irregular, cleft on the upper side nearly to 
the base, anthers cohering, stigma two lobed, and capsules two 
or three celled. 
It belongs to the class Pentandria, order Monogynia of 
LiNN^us, and to the natural order Campanulaceae of Jussieu, 
Lobeliaceae of Lindley. 
Vulgar names. — Emetic weed, emetic herb, eyebright, 
wild tobacco, Indian tobacco, etc. 
Lobelia inflata. The Indian tobacco is a biennial indi- 
genous plant, varying from six inches to two or three feet in 
height, according to the vigour of the plant; having a fibrous 
yellow root, and a solitary, erect, angular, very hairy stem, 
which in the full grown plant is much branched about mid- 
way, but rising from six to ten inches above the highest 
branches. 
The leaves are scattered, sessile, oval, serrate, acute and 
hairy: flowers disposed in terminal racimes, each flower being 
pedunculated in the axil of a small leaf. The segments of 
the calyx are linear and pointed. The corolla is of a delicate 
blue colour, with a labiate border, the anthers united, curved, 
and blue, enclosing the stigma. The fruit is an oval, striated, 
