Taraxacum.

Botanical name: 

Dose.—Of a decoction of two ounces of the bruised root to a quart of water, boiled down to a pint and strained, one to three ounces, three or four times a day. Of the extract, from twenty grains to one drachm, three times a day.

As a diuretic and curative agent, Taraxacum is beneficial in those dropsical cases occasioned by hepatic torpor or engorgement, and visceral enlargements and obstruction, when unattended with over-excited vascular action. Its tonic, aperient and alterative properties, associated with its diuretic action, contribute much undoubtedly to the relief of those cases to which it is thought to be especially adapted. It is mostly employed in the form of a decoction or extract. The bitartrate of potash, or some other saline purgative, is frequently added to the decoction.


The American Eclectic Materia Medica and Therapeutics, 1898, was written by John M. Scudder, M.D.