7? * ORD, II. Composite. CICHORIUM INTYBUS, 
monly eaten bythe Romans; and according to Pliny® this name 
signified the wild species of the plant. The Intybus and Seris are 
also mentioned as itS congeners, the latter implying the cultivated 
species. 
Wild Succory, or Cichory, as it has heen called, “ abounds with 
a milky juice, of a penetrating bitterish taste, and of no remarkable 
smell, or particular flavour: the roots are bitterer than the leaves 
or stalks, and these much more so than the flowers.” 
By culture in gardens, and blanching, it loses its bitterness, and 
may be eaten early in the spring in sallads. The roots, if gathered 
before the stems shoot up, are also eatable, and when dried may be 
made into bread.‘ 
The roots and leaves of this plant are stated by Lewis to be “very 
useful aperients, acting mildly and without irritation, tending 
rather to abate than to increase heat, and which may therefore be 
given with safety in hectic and inflammatory cases. Taken freely, 
they keep the belly open, or produce a gentle diarrhea; and when 
- thus continued for some time, they have often proved salutary in 
_ beginning obstructions of the viscera, in jaundices, cachexies, 
hypochondriacal and other chronical disorders.’”* 
A decoction of this herb, with others of the like kind, in whey, 
and rendered purgative by a suitable addition of polychrest salt, 
was found an useful remedy in cases of biliary calculi,* and promises 
advantage in many complaints requiring what have been termed 
attenuants and resolvents. The virtues of Succory, like those of 
dandelion, reside in its milky juice; and in most of the plants of 
the order Semiflosculose, a juice of a similar nature is to be found; 
therefore what has been before observed of the effects of taraxacum, 
will, in a great measure, apply to the Cichorium; and we are 
warranted in saying, that the expressed juice of both these plants, 
ae Se ee ° Withering. 1, ¢ 
a Lewis d. Ce 
* Van Swieten. Cemment. T. itt. p. 137. 
