# Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

**Radicchio**

**Known today as.** *Cichorium intybus*.

Kind: Plant  
Qualities: Cold and dry (Galenic tradition).

## What did Canale use it for?

In the relaxing broths (ch. 5).

## What does modern science say?

Mildly laxative and bitter.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **inulin**: the root’s storage carbohydrate
- **lactucin and lactucopicrin**: sesquiterpene lactone bitters
- **chicoric acid**: 

**Mechanism.** The root’s inulin is the standard industrial prebiotic, which feeds bifidobacteria and softens the stool; the lactones are the bitter and have sedative and analgesic action in mice, as in lettuce; the “relaxing broth” was the mucilage and the warmth.

**Dose.** Safe as a vegetable; inulin at more than 10–15 g a day gives wind and bloating; the lactones cause contact dermatitis in handlers.

**Standing.** Inulin from chicory carries an EFSA-approved health claim (2015) for bowel function; the root has a traditional-use listing in several European pharmacopoeias.

## What lore surrounds it?

European folk tradition, especially German and Central European, tells of a maiden who waited faithfully by the roadside for a sailor or soldier who never came home, and was turned for her constancy into the blue roadside flower, which is why several traditions call it “blue sailor.” The tale survives in many regional variants rather than a single telling.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Pliny.** Says that in Egypt, next to the colocasia, “it is the cichorium that is held in the highest esteem,” the plant he had called wild endive: it springs up after the rising of the Pleiades, blossoms by degrees, and “the root is supple, and hence is used for making withes even.”

**Culpeper.** An herb of Jupiter: garden succory, “more dry and less cold than Endive,” opens more, and a handful of the leaves or roots boiled in wine or water and drunk fasting drives forth choleric and phlegmatic humours and opens obstructions of the liver, gall, and spleen; a dram of the seed in wine before the fit helps drive away an ague; the wild succory, being more bitter, is more strengthening to the stomach.

## Sources

- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Chicory.” As published on botanical.com.
- Pliny the Elder, *Natural History* 21.52, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library.
- Culpeper, N. (1653). *The Complete Herbal*, “Succory, Or Chicory.” Project Gutenberg #49513.
- EFSA NDA Panel (2015). “Scientific opinion on the substantiation of a health claim related to native chicory inulin and maintenance of normal defecation.” *EFSA Journal* 13.
- Street, R. A., et al. (2013). “*Cichorium intybus*: traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology, and toxicology.” *Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine*.

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*Chicory.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/chicory

Historical description, not medical advice.