Lobelia Inflata.
W. Leming, M. D., Lexington, Kentucky
The original study made by The Eclectic League for Drug Research of the State of Kentucky, on the drug Lobelia, confirms and suggests the following specific indications for its use:
1. A sense of dyspnea over the chest and heart.
2. A fulness and atonicity of tissue, doughyness.
3. Spasmodic and congestive conditions, local and general.
4. Cough, with or without glandular secretion, with above indications.
5. Shock to the vital forces; collapse (hypodermic use).
6. Toxemias, diphtheria, membranous croup, tetanus (hypodermic use).
7. Nerve excitation; morphinism (hypodermic use).
Administered hypodermically, not one report mentioned nausea or emesis as a result, only a salutary stimulation of forces and strengthening of the pulse.
In diphtheria, Dr. G. T. Fuller, Kentucky, considers it a coming drug, equal to and safer than antitoxin.
Dr. W. P. Best, Indianapolis, reports its hypodermic use in a child three days old (premature) apparently dying; resuscitation and improvement were immediate, but death occurred later from inanition.
Given hypodermically in a severe case of quinsy, the pain was relieved and the patient asleep in twenty minutes, the first rest in several days.
Dr. Ralph Taylor, Ohio, considers it a nerve sedative hypodermically, safe and unproductive of emesis in any dose.
One doctor claims it is valuable in morphinism.
Dr. G. W. Holmes, Florida, gave one dram with Veratrum viride night and morning, per rectum, in a child inoculated with tetanus, after chloral, bromides, and Gelsemium had failed. Improvement was marked in twenty-four hours with gradual recovery.
Dr. V. A. Baker, Michigan, regards it by mouth as a great febrifuge, a panacea, useful in fever complications. He depends upon it in syphilis.
It did no good in a case of collapse after an operation for purulent appendicitis, but no nausea supervened.
It was successfully administered in a case of membranous croup.
Injections into inflamed inguinal buboes prevented suppuration in two or three instances, and limited the pus focus in the third. No nausea or after pain.
The pulse was strengthened and slowed for the time being in a case of tachycardia, effects from its continued use not being determined. Ten-drop doses by mouth stimulated labor pains rather than nausea. Dr. J. J. Morrill, Kentucky, uses one dram to a pint of hot water as a local agent to the perineum in the second stage of labor.
All reports speak of its usefulness in congestive and spasmodic conditions of the heart and lungs, accompanied by pain and unpleasant sensations. Not one bad effect was reported from its use hypodermically.
The dose hypodermically ranged from ten to sixty drops; by mouth, one to sixty, as indicated.
Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 3, 1909, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.
