# Lobelia (Lobelia inflata) *Indian tobacco, pukeweed, asthma weed, gag root, vomitwort, emetic weed, bladder-pod, inflated lobelia, eyebright; *Rapuntium inflatum*; *Lobelia inflata* L.* **Known today as.** *Lobelia inflata*, an erect annual or biennial of dry places in the northern United States and Canada, a foot or two high, with small pale violet-blue flowers whose calyx swells around the seed pod, whence *inflata*. The genus is named after the sixteenth-century botanist Matthias de Lobel, who, Grieve writes, died in London in 1616. The dried flowering herb and the seeds are the drug; chewed, it tastes much like tobacco, burning and acrid, and brings a flow of saliva. Its activity depends on an alkaloid, lobeline, first isolated in 1838. Kind: Plant Toxic: yes > **Caution.** The old authorities disagreed. Grieve states that in excessive doses it acts as “a powerful acro-narcotic poison, producing great depression, nausea, cold-sweats, and possibly death,” and that poisoning may follow its absorption through the skin; her editor noted that herbalists denied it was poisonous or had ever caused death. King’s held that “lobelia, in the ordinary sense of the term, is not a poison,” though injudicious use could kill, arguing that its prompt emetic action usually prevents the alkaloid, which certainly kills animals, from doing fatal harm. ## What was it used for? An emetic, an expectorant, and a relaxant of spasm, above all in asthma. Grieve records it as expectorant, diaphoretic, and anti-asthmatic, invaluable “where relaxation of the system is required, as, for instance, to subdue spasm,” and given in epilepsy, tetanus, diphtheria, and tonsillitis. She says it should not be used as an emetic; her editor added that herbalists nearly always gave it in doses large enough to make the patient vomit, and valued it most so. ## What does modern science say? No European monograph covers the herb. Its alkaloid lobeline, a partial nicotine agonist, was sold in preparations to help people stop smoking; a Cochrane review of 2012 found no trials with long-term follow-up and concluded that “there is no evidence available from long term trials that lobeline can aid smoking cessation, and the short-term evidence suggests there is no benefit.” That review concerns the isolated alkaloid, not the herb. ## Pharmacognosy and toxicology - **lobeline**: the liquid alkaloid on which its activity depends, first isolated by Proctor in 1838; richer in the seeds - **lobelic acid**: found by Pereira **Mechanism.** Lobeline is a partial nicotine agonist, the Cochrane review records; King’s held that its prompt emetic action usually prevents fatal harm. **Standing.** There is no European monograph. A Cochrane review (2012) found no evidence that lobeline aids smoking cessation. ## What lore surrounds it? King’s traces its names: botanists gave it none until bladder-pod in 1810; Thomson and Cutler called it emetic weed, which led to pukeweed, vomit weed, and gag root, though the root was never used; and Indian tobacco came, the authors suggest, from its tobacco-like taste rather than any record that the Indians used it. ## What did the older authorities say? **Felter and Lloyd, *King’s American Dispensatory* (1898).** “Few drugs are more favored among Eclectic physicians than lobelia, and certainly none others have so interesting a history.” It was known to the Penobscot and used in New England domestic practice before Samuel Thomson, its “assumed discoverer,” and Manasseh Cutler, an asthmatic who found it relieved him more than anything else, published the first account of it in 1785. Thomson was tried for killing a patient, Ezra Lovett, with lobelia, and acquitted when the powder the prosecution produced proved to be marsh rosemary; to be known as a “lobelia doctor” became a byword. In a later trial in New York, Dr. R. K. Frost was convicted of manslaughter for giving “poisonous decoctions of lobelia” and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. ## Sources - Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Lobelia.” As published on botanical.com. - Felter, H. W., & Lloyd, J. U. (1898). *King’s American Dispensatory*, vol. 2, “Lobelia.” Internet Archive, kingsamericandis02kinguoft. - Stead LF & Hughes JR (2012). Lobeline for smoking cessation. *The Cochrane database of systematic reviews*. PMID 22336780. - Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Lobelia.” As published on botanical.com. - Felter, H. W., & Lloyd, J. U. (1898). *King’s American Dispensatory*, vol. 2, “Lobelia.” Internet Archive, kingsamericandis02kinguoft. - Stead LF & Hughes JR (2012). Lobeline for smoking cessation. *The Cochrane database of systematic reviews*. PMID 22336780. --- *Lobelia.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-17. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/lobelia Historical description, not medical advice.