720 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
Drs. Letheby and Hassall undertook to ascertain the effects of roasted 
chicory on the human system. Three persons partook of a chicory breakfast ; 
the infusion was dark colored, thick, destitute of the agreeable and refreshing 
aroma so characteristic of coffee, and was of a bitter taste. Each individual 
experienced for sometime after drinking the fusion, a sensation of heavi- 
ness, drowsiness, a feeling of weight at the stomach, and great indisposition 
to exertion; in two headache set in, and in the third diarrhoea came on. 
Hence the wholesome properties of chicory as an article of diet are question- 
able. Tnere is hardly any advantage of the admixture of chicory with coffee. 
Chicory, from its narcotic character, exerts au injurious effect on the nervous 
system ; according to some oculists, chicory-coffee is considered as among 
the causes of amaurotic blindness. 
691 — 0 . Endivia , Linn., h.f.b.i., hi. 391 . 
Vern. : — Kasni (H. and Pers.) ; Kashini-virai (Tam.); Koshee 
(Tel.); Saz-e-hand (Cashmere). 
English : — The garden endive. 
Habitat : — Northern India. 
It resembles the preceding species, but is more glabrous. 
Uses: — It is much valued by the Hakims as a resolvent and 
cooling medicine, and is prescribed in bilious complaints much 
as Taraxacum is with us (Dymock). 
The root is used in dyspepsia and fever as a tonic and 
demulcent ; fruit, a cooling remedy for fever, headache and 
jaundice. tT. N. Mukerji.) 
The root is considered warm, stimulating and febrifuge ; 
given in “Munjus,” the diluent taken preparatory to purging; 
the seed is used in sherbets (Irvine). 
692 — Taraxacum officinale, Wigg., h.f.b.i., hi. 
401 . 
Vern. : — Dudai ; Baran ; Kanphul ; Dudli ; Shatnooke (Pb.); 
Buthur (Sind.) ; Pathree (Dec.). 
Habitat : — Throughout the Himalaya and Western Tibet, 
and the Mishmi Mountains. 
A scapigorous, milky herb, perennial. Root vertical. Leaves 
all radical, glabrous, or crown and scape woolly ; leaves, sessile, 
oblanceolate or linear, entire, toothed, pinuatiiid or runcinate ; 
