substance possesses more than very slight sedative properties, if indeed. it is not absolutely inert.'

Lobelia, Indian Tobacco; F. Lobelie enflée; G. Lobeliakraut.

Botanical Origin-Lobelia inflata L., an annual herb, 9 to 18 inches high, with an angular upright stem, simple or more frequently branching near the top, widely diffused throughout the eastern part of North America from Canada to the Mississippi, growing in neglected fields, along roadsides, and on the edges of woods, and thriving well in European gardens.

History-Lobelia inflata was described and figured by Linnæus 2 from specimens cultivated by him at Upsala about 1741, but he does not attribute to the plant any medicinal virtues.

The aborigines of North America made use of the herb, which from this circumstance and its acrid taste, came to be called Indian Tobacco. In Europe it was noticed by Schöpf, 3 but with little appreciation of its powers. In America it has long been in the hands of quack doctors, but its value in asthma was set forth by Cutler in 1813. It was not employed in England until about 1829, when, with several other remedies, it was introduced to the medical profession by Reece.*

Description-The leaves are 1 to 3 inches long, scattered, sessile, ovate-lanceolate, rather acute, obscurely toothed, somewhat pubescent. The edge of the leaf bears small whitish glands, and between them isolated hairs which are more frequent on the under than on the upper surface. They are usually in greater abundance on the lower and middle portions of the stem.

The stem of the growing plant exudes when wounded a small quantity of acrid milky juice, contained in laticiferous vessels running also into the leaves. The inconspicuous blossoms are arranged in a manyflowered, terminal, leafy raceme. The five-cleft, bilabiate corolla is bluish with a yellow spot on the under lip, its tube being as long as the somewhat divergent limb of the calyx.

The capsule is ovoid, inflated, ten-ribbed, crowned by five elongated sepals which are half as long as the ripe fruit. The latter is two-celled, and contains a large number of ovate-oblong seeds about of an inch in length, having a reticulated, pitted surface.

The herb found in commerce is in the form of rectangular cakes, 1 to 12 inches thick, consisting of the yellowish-green chopped herb, compressed as it would seem while still moist, and afterwards neatly

1 Stillé, Therapeutics and Mat. Med. i. (1868) 756. Garrod (Med. Times and Gazette, 26 March, 1864), gave lactucarium in drachm doses, repeated 3 or 4 times a day, without being able to perceive that it had any effect either as an anodyne or hypnotic.

23.

2 Acta Soc. Reg. Scient. Upsal. 1746.

3 Mat. Med. Americana, Erlangæ, 1787. 128.

+ Treatise on the Bladder-podded Lobelia; Lond. 1829.

trimmed. The cakes arrive wrapped in paper, sealed up and bearing the label of some American druggist or herb-grower.

Lobelia has a herby smell and, after being chewed, a burning acrid taste resembling that of tobacco.

Chemical Composition-Lobelia has been examined by Procter, Pereira (1842), Reinsch (1843), Bastick (1851), also by F. F. Mayer.' The first-named chemist' traced the activity of the plant to an alkaloid which he termed Lobelina, and his observations were confirmed by the independent experiments of Bastick." Lewis (1878) obtained it by mixing the drug with charcoal and exhausting the powder with water containing a little acetic acid. The liquid is cautiously evaporated to the consistency of an extract and triturated with magnesia, from the excess of which the aqueous solution of lobeline is separated by filtration. It is agitated with amylic alcohol (or ether), which by spontaneous evaporation affords the alkaloid. The latter is again dissolved in water and filtered through animal charcoal; from the dried powder lobeline is to be removed by ether.

Lobeline is an oily, yellowish fluid with a strong alkaline reaction, especially when in solution. In the pure state it smells slightly of the plant, but more strongly when mixed with ammonia. Its taste is pungent and tobacco-like, and when taken in minute doses, it exercises in a potent manner the poisonous action of the drug. Lobeline is to some extent volatile, but its decomposition begins when it is heated to 100° C. either pure or in presence of dilute acids or caustic alkalis. Lobeline dissolves in water, but more readily in alcohol or ether, the latter of which is capable of removing it from its aqueous solution. It neutralizes acids, forming with some of them crystallizable salts, soluble in water or alcohol.

The herb likewise contains traces of essential oil (the Lobelianin of Pereira?), resin and gum. The seeds afforded Procter about 30 per cent. of fixed oil, sp. gr. 0.940, which was found to dry very rapidly. The Lobeliin of Reinsch appears to be an indefinite compound.

In 1871 Enders at our request performed some researches on Lobelia in order to isolate the acrid substance to which the herb owes its taste. He exhausted the drug with spirit of wine and distilled the liquid in presence of charcoal, which then retained the acrid principle. The charcoal was washed with water, and then treated with boiling alcohol. This on evaporation yielded a green extract, which was further purified by means of chloroform. Warty tufts were thus finally obtained, yet always of a brownish colour. The tufts are readily soluble in ether and chloroform, but only slightly in water; they possess the acrid taste of lobelia. This substance, which we may term Lobelacrin, is decomposed if merely boiled with water; by the influence of alkalis or acids it is resolved into sugar and Lobelic Acid. The latter is soluble in ether, water, and alcohol, and is non-volatile; it yields a soluble salt with baryum oxide, whereas its plumbic salt is insoluble in water.

Lewis suggests that lobelacrin is nothing else than lobeliate of lobeline, which he believes to exist ready formed in the plant. From a

1 American Journ. of Pharm. xxxvii. (1866) 209; also Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann, 1866. 252.

2 Am. Journ. of Pharm, iii. (1838) 98; vii. (1841) 1; Pharm. Journ. x.(1851) 456. 3 Pharm. Journ. x. (1851) 270.

decoction of the drug, on addition of sulphate of copper, lobeliate of copper is precipitated. By decomposing the latter with sulphuretted hydrogen, concentrating the solution and shaking it with warm ether, Lewis obtained a yellow solution affording on evaporation a crystalline mass of lobelic acid.

Uses-Lobelia is a powerful nauseating emetic; in large doses an acro-narcotic poison. It is prescribed in spasmodic asthma.

ERICACEE.

FOLIA UVE URSI.

Bearberry Leaves; F. Feuilles de Busserole; G. Bärentraubenblätter.

Botanical Origin—Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi Sprengel (A.officinalis Wimmer et Grabowsky, Arbutus Uva-ursi L.), a small, procumbent, evergreen shrub, distributed over the greater part of the northern hemisphere. It occurs in North America, Iceland, Northern Europe, and Russian Asia, and on the chief mountain chains of Central and Southern Europe. In Britain it is confined to Scotland, the north of England, and Ireland.

History The bearberry was used in the 13th century by the Welsh "Physicians of Myddfai," described by Clusius in 1601, and recommended for medicinal use in 1763 by Gerhard of Berlin and others. It had a place in the London Pharmacopoeia for the first time in 1788.

Description-The leaves are dark green, to 1 inch in length by to of an inch in breadth, obovate, rounded at the end, gradually narrowed into a short petiole. They are entire, with the margin a little reflexed, and in the young state slightly pubescent, otherwise the whole leaf is smooth, glabrous, and coriaceous; the upper surface shining, deeply impressed with a network of veins; the under minutely reticulated with dark veins.2 The leaves have a very astringent taste, and when powdered a tea-like smell.

Chemical Composition-Kawalier (1852) has shown that a decoction of bearberry treated with basic acetate of lead yields a gallate of that metal, thus proving that gallic acid exists ready-formed in the leaves. When the filtrate, freed from lead by sulphuretted hydrogen, is properly concentrated, it deposits acicular crystals of Arbutin, a bitter neutral substance, easily soluble in hot water, less so in cold, dissolving in alcohol, but sparingly in ether.

By contact for some days with emuslin, or by boiling with dilute sulphuric acid, arbutin is resolved, according to Hlasiwetz and Habermann (1875), as follows:

CHO1+2OH C6H12O6. CH4(OH)2. CH(OH.OCHS)

Arbutin.

=

Glucose. Hydrokinone. Methyl-hydrokinone.

Yet possibly arbutin is a mixture of the glucoside compounds of both hydrokinone and methyl-hydrokinone.

1 Murray, Apparatus Medicaminum, ii. (1794) 64-81.

2 Microscopic structure of the leaves, see Pocklington, Pharm. Journ. v. (1874) 301.

By heating arbutin with peroxide of manganese and dilute sulphuric acid, on the other hand, Kinone, CHO, and formic acid are produced. If a concentrated decoction of the leaves is allowed to stand for some months, a decomposition of the arbutin takes place, and a certain quantity of hydrokinone can be isolated by shaking the liquid with ether.

Arbutin is apparently widely distributed among the plants belonging to the order Ericaceæ. Maisch in 1874 showed it to occur in Arctostaphylos glauca Swindley, Gaultheria procumbens L. (Wintergreen) and several other allied American plants. Kennedy (1875) isolated arbutin from Kalmia latifolia L. (Spoon wood), where it occurs in smaller quantity than in bearberry leaves.

Kinic acid (see p. 363) is probably absent in all these plants containing arbutin.

Uloth (1859) had already noticed pyrocatechin (p. 244) and hydrokinone among the products of the distillation of an aqueous extract of bearberry leaves. Arbutin itself also yields hydrokinone by means of dry distillation. Hydrokinone forms colourless crystals, melting at 169° C.

In the mother liquor from which the arbutin has crystallized, there remains a small quantity of the very bitter substance called Ericolin, occurring in greater abundance in Calluna, Ledum, Rhododendron, and other Ericacea. Ericolin is an amorphous yellowish mass, softening at 100° C. and resolved, when heated with dilute sulphuric acid, into sugar and Ericinol, a colourless, quickly resinifying oil of a peculiar, not disagreeable odour; its composition' agrees with the formula C10H16O. The same, or CHO, is to be assigned to Ursone, which H. Trommsdorff, in 1854, obtained from bearberry leaves by exhausting them with ether (in which however it is but slightly soluble). Ursone is a colourless and tasteless crystallizable substance. It melts at 200° C., and sublimes apparently unchanged. Tonner (1866) met with it in the leaves of an Australian Epacris, a plant of the same order as the bearberry.

Lastly, tannic acid is present in the leaves under notice; their aqueous infusion is nearly colourless, but assumes a violet hue on addition of ferrous sulphate. After a short time a reddish precipitate is produced, which quickly turns blue. By using ferric chloride, a bluish black precipitate immediately separates.

Adulteration-The leaves of Vaccinium Vitis-idaea L., called Red Whortleberry or Cowberry, have been confounded with those of bearberry, which in form they much resemble. But they are easily distinguished by being somewhat crenate towards the apex, dotted and reticulate on the under surface and more revolate at the margin.

Uses-An astringent tonic used chiefly in affections of the bladder.

1 Gmelin, Chemistry, xvi. (1864) 28.

EBENACEÆ.

FRUCTUS DIOSPYRI.

Indian Persimmon.

Botanical Origin-Diospyros Embryopteris Pers. (Embryopteris glutinifera Roxb.), a middle-sized or large evergreen tree, native of the western coast of India, Ceylon, Bengal, Burma, Siam, and also Java.'

3

History The tree, which is mentioned in the earliest epic poems of the Sanskrit literature under the name of tinduka,2 was also known about the year 1680 to Rheede, and was figured in his Hortus Malabaricus. The circumstance that the unripe fruit abounds in an astringent viscid juice which is used by the natives of India for daubing the bottoms of boats, was communicated by Sir William Jones to Roxburgh in 1791. The introduction of the fruit into medicine, which is due to O'Shaughnessy, has been followed by its admission to the Pharmacopoeia of India, 1868.

Description-The fruit is usually solitary, subsessile or pedunculate, globular or ovoid, 1 to 2 inches long, and as much as 11⁄2 inch in diameter, surrounded at the base by a large and deeply 4-lobed calyx. It is of a yellowish colour, covered with a rusty tomentum; internally it is pulpy, 6- to 10-celled, with thin flat solitary seeds. The fruit is used only in the unripe and fresh state; the pulp is then excessively astringent. At maturity, in the month of April near Bombay, the fruit becomes eatable, but is very little appreciated.

5

Chemical Composition-No analysis has been made of this fruit, but there can be no doubt that in common with that of other species of Diospyros, it is, when immature, rich in tannic acid. Charropin (1873), who has examined the fruit of the American D. virginiana L., found it to contain a tannic acid which he considered identical with that of nutgalls, besides an abundance of pectin, glucose, and a yellow colouring matter insoluble in water but dissolving freely in ether.

Uses The inspissated juice has been recommended as an astringent in diarrhoea and chronic dysentery.

STYRACEÆ.

RESINA BENZOË.

Benzoïnum; Benzoin, Gum Benjamin; F. Benjoin; G. Benzoëharz.o

Botanical Origin-Styrax Benzoin Dryander, a tree of moderate height, with stem as thick as a man's body and beautiful crown of

Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 18 (1877).

As we learn from Dr. Rice.-Prof. Dymock (1876) gives Timbooree as the Bombay name.

Tom. iii. tab. 41.

4 Bengal Dispensatory, Calcutta, 1842.428. Etude sur le Plaqueminier (Diospyros), thèse, Paris, 1873. 28-30.

6 Benzoin in Malay and Javanese is termed Kamañan, Kamiñan, and Kamayan, abbreviated to mañan and miñan (Crawfurd); it is called in Siamese kom-yan or kan-yan; in Chinese ngán-gi-hing.

The name Benzoin is also applied to the beautiful prisms C14H1202 obtained by treating Bitter Almond Oil with an alcoholic solution of potash.