SUBSTITUTES AND ADULTERANTS. 215 



The destinction therefore between the properties of the 

 seeds and roots of plants in general is very important, 

 and especially so in the case of coffee and chicory, the 

 infusion of the latter being heavy, black, mawkish and 

 entirely destitute of aroma; that of the former being 

 light, rich, fragrant and refreshing. Coffee containing 

 three active principles : caffeine, volatile oil and 

 tannin, chicory possessing no such analogous constitu- 

 ents. Coffee exerting very marked and highly important 

 pysiological effects of a beneficial character in the human 

 system, while there is not a single proof that chicory 

 exerts any one of these effects, it being very questionable, 

 in the contrary, whether the properties it does possess are 

 not really injurious. None of these or analogous princi- 

 ples are to be found in any of the substitutes or adulter- 

 ants of coffee, so that the latter cannot possess a single 

 one of the peculiar and beneficial properties of coffee, being 

 simply a deception on the stomach of the consumer. 



Chicory contains neither caffeine nor essential oil like 

 coffee, and is neither exhilarating nor pleasant in taste, 

 while on some persons it acts as an irritant and purgative. 

 Some so-called coffees contain large quantities of it, even 

 to the extent of 95 per cent, which it would be more 

 correct to call such a mixture " adulterated chicory," 

 rather than coffee, which term it seems entitled to only 

 as a matter of courtesy, chicory being in its turn 

 also subject to adulteration in many forms, two very 

 common adulterants being beet-root and mangel-wurzel. 

 As to the nutrition possessed by chicory, it contains 

 only about one-half the nitrogenous substances of coffee 

 and even that quantity in no way benefits the consumer, 

 as these substances are insoluble in water and are wasted 

 in the infusion. It has been proved also that even the 

 chicory itself is extensively adulterated, as all of the 



