A handbook of native american herbs

It is a powerful antispasmodic and recommends itself in other spasmodic and reflex nervous diseases, such as whooping cough and asthma. For many people ginseng has had beneficial results in the home for general strengthening and appetite, as well as to relieve eructations from the stomach, neuralgia, rheumatism, gout, irritation of bronchi or lungs from cold, gastroenteric indigestion, weak heart, spinal and nervous affection.

Historically, ginseng has been periodically recognized and discounted in many continents when laboratory technicians could not verify its apparent physiological and psychological accomplishments.

For the latest information on ginseng you must go abroad. Until about 1964 Anglo-American literature did not pay much attention to the long-held belief in the useful properties of ginseng.

DOSE: To make a tea, take 3 ounces of powder (ginseng 6–7 years old), add 1 ounce of honey and 60 drops of wintergreen, and blend. Use 1 teaspoonful to 1 cup of boiling water, let it stay a little short of the boiling point for 10 minutes, drink as hot as you can before each meal. To make tea from the dried leaves, steep as you would for ordinary teas. Excellent for nervous indigestion.

HOMEOPATHIC CLINICAL: Trituration and tincture of the root for apendicitis, debility, headache, lumbago, rheumatism, sciatica, sexual excitement.

RUSSIAN EXPERIENCE: China has always been a good market for ginseng, the highest prices being paid for old roots. Years ago a Chinese emperor sent a present of the best selected roots to a Russian czar. Being unaware of its properties, and suspicious, the Russian official understandably thought it best to have it analyzed to see why so much importance was given to this manlike root. The Military Academy of Medicine was elected for this purpose, as the international diplomat was a military figure. The top staff, heads of wisdom, could not find any health-giving properties after long and careful research. So at this time ginseng was thought of as a Chinaman’s prejudice and was rejected because of insufficient evidence for further scientific research.

This did not dampen the original enthusiasm of the Chinese, as they still went to the Russian Far East to collect and buy Russian and Manchurian ginseng, which they considered the best. The price did not restrict their demands, as they would pay ten to twenty times more than gold, or the traditional oriental silver. Time and experience have led to developing plantations of ginseng in Korea, China, Manchuria, and Japan.

The first recorded use of ginseng in Russia occurred in 1675, by Boyarin N. G. Sapfary; three hundred years later we consider the Russians to be in the forefront of world research. Twenty-five years ago, teams were sent to neighboring countries to study established plantations. The highly protected secret of this culture is not given charitably. Today all information from observation and study leads us to Russia’s own army of ginseng specialists in all parts of Russia, but particularly in the Far East. All work and research is directed and coordinated by the Committee for Ginseng Research, which oversees universities, institutes, laboratories, agro-technological methods, fieldwork, plantations, publications, etc.

There are plantations of ginseng in the Russian Far East, Moscow region, Byelorussia (White Russia), and Caucasia (Bello-Russ. Acad, 1965). In the past, Russian ginseng was always collected from the wild, but today the cultivated plant is exported, being gathered in August.

Lengthy study and research of Chinese folk medicine’s use of ginseng not only confirms fundamental impressions but has opened new horizons to its proven value (Vishaya Scholla, Moscow, 1963).

In North America we think of ginseng as the slow-growing herb, as it takes five to seven years before the root is considered usable. To find a plant fifty years old is considered sensational, as collectors usually find the plants before they reach this age. The age is told by the rings around the root. Though the older roots in North America are uncommon, theoretically, the older the root the smaller should be the dose.

In the Far East there are plants that have reached the age of one hundred, two hundred and even four