Lobelia inflata is harmless even in large quantities and is not a poison, whatever regular physicians claim.
Thomson’s own 1822 autobiographical Narrative, restated in his 1835 New Guide to Health, states of his emetic herb (lobelia) that no danger should be apprehended from its use, calling it perfectly harmless in its operation even when a large quantity is taken (Thomson 1822; Thomson 1835). James Harvey Young separately records that Thomson denied lobelia was a poison even in large doses, insisting he had the instinct of a wild animal for what was safe to eat (Young 1961). Modern pharmacology confirms lobelia’s alkaloid lobeline acts on nicotinic receptors and disrupts vesicular monoamine storage, a real pharmacological action rather than a harmless one (Dwoskin and Crooks 2002), and in 1837 a Thomsonian practitioner in New York was convicted of manslaughter for a patient’s death from an excessive dose of the same herb (Young 1961). The claim of harmlessness at any dose is treated as refuted rather than merely unreplicated.
Appears in
Sources
- A Narrative of the Life and Medical Discoveries of Samuel Thomson (1822), frontispiece portrait — Williams, H. (engraver). Frontispiece portrait of Samuel Thomson, captioned as botanist and noting his birth date of 9 February 1769, in Samuel Thomson, A Narrative of the Life and Medical Discoveries of Samuel Thomson; Containing an Account of His System of Practice, and the Manner of Curing Disease with Vegetable Medicine, upon a Plan Entirely New (Boston: Printed for the Author, by E. G. House, 1822).
- New Guide to Health; or, Botanic Family Physician — Thomson, Samuel. New Guide to Health; or, Botanic Family Physician. Containing a Complete System of Practice, upon a Plan Entirely New: with a Description of the Vegetables Made Use of, and Directions for Preparing and Administering Them, to Cure Disease. To Which Is Prefixed, A Narrative of the Life and Medical Discoveries of the Author. Boston: Printed for the Author, and sold by his General Agent, at the Office of the Boston Investigator, J. Q. Adams, Printer, 1835.
- The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation (chapter 4, Samuel Thomson) — Young, James Harvey. The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America before Federal Regulation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961, chapter 4. Reproduced with permission of the author and publisher at Quackwatch, https://quackwatch.org/hx/tm/4-2/ (posted 29 April 2002).
- A novel mechanism of action and potential use for lobeline as a treatment for psychostimulant abuse — Dwoskin, Linda P., and Peter A. Crooks. A Novel Mechanism of Action and Potential Use for Lobeline as a Treatment for Psychostimulant Abuse. Biochemical Pharmacology 63, no. 2 (2002): 89-98. doi:10.1016/s0006-2952(01)00899-1. PMID: 11841781.