American ginseng,how to use this magic tonic from the past.

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History,Discovery,Distribution and Trade.

American Ginseng Extract INCI Name Panax quinquefolius extract CAS 090045-38-8 Panax quinquefolium extract Ginsenosides photo picture image Legends and Myths:

 Used in China for over 5,000 years, ginseng was known to 9th century Arab physicians. Over 400 million people have been using this herb for centuries. Marco Polo wrote of this prized wonder drug and when a delegation from the King of Siam visited Louis XIV, they presented the king with a root of gintz-aen. From then on, ginseng was widely used by wealthy Europeans for exhaustion and debility. By the 18th century, it was also popular in America, especially when P. quinquefolius was found to be indigenous.

 The name "panax" in the botanical name means "all-healing." The Mandarin name for ginseng, len seng, literally means "root of man," so named because the root resembles the shape of the human body.

 It is said that the botanical name of ginseng is derived from the Greek word for panacea, because of the great reverence in which the herb is held.

 Ginseng was known to Judah in the market place of Israel (Ezekiel 27:17). Trading was done in wheat, oil balm, honey, and "Pannag," or all-healing ginseng.

 No medicinal herb is more famous than Ginseng. For over 200 years wild American Ginseng has been harvested and shipped to the Orient. Today, over 95% of the American Ginseng crop (wild-harvested and cultivated) is shipped to eastern Asia. Interstate commerce of the root is regulated by the federal government. It is unethical and illegal to harvest the roots before the red berries ripen and set seed in late summer or early autumn.

 In China for centuries, Ginseng was considered an almost magical drug, a cure for bodily woes. Among the Chinese healers Ginseng is regarded primarily as a "man's herb" although it may be taken by both men and women. The female equivalent of Ginseng is a root called Dong Kwei.

 The name Ginseng is derived from the Chinese word for "likeness of man" because its roots sometimes resemble a human figure. Ginseng's genus name Panax, like the word panacea, comes from the Greek word panakeia, meaning "all-healing". This refers to the plant's reputation as a Chinese cure-all. Quinquefolium means five-fingered leaf.

 Native Americans have used the root of this plant to relieve vomiting and nausea. Some tribes used it in their love potions. American colonists began using ginseng in the early 1700s. The Eclectics, 19th century physicians who rejected synthetic drugs in favor of plant medicines, recommended American ginseng as a stimulant and aphrodisiac.

 The American ginseng plant, Panax quinquefolius, is similar in appearance and is in the same botanic genus as Asian ginseng (panax ginseng). First described in the early 18th century in Eastern Canada, P. quinquefolius was primarily harvested for export to China. American ginseng is also referred to as North American, Canadian, or Wisconsin ginseng, referring to primary areas of harvest or cultivation, although it is now grown in many areas of the world. The root is used medicinally.

 American Ginseng,sometimes called by its common name Panax, was discovered in Canada in the 18th century.Early Western botany and medical writers observed American ginseng's ability to help restore energy after fatigue and its antispasmodic effects in nervous affection.

 A 1714 publication of Father Petrus Jartoux (1668-1720), a Jesuit missionary in North China, provided the first published Western account of the Asian Panax ginseng. After describing the plant's habitat, Jartoux made a remarkable conjecture. "All of which makes me believe," he writes, "that if it is to be found in any other country in the world, it may be particularly in Canada, where the forest and mountains, according to the relation of those that have lived there, very much resemble these here" (Jartoux, 1714).

 In 1715 Jartoux's words reached Joseph Francois Lafitau (1681-1746), a Jesuit missionary working among the Mohawks above Montreal. After three futile months of searching, he stumbled upon American ginseng quite by accident in 1716. His discovery was detailed in an 8,000-word letter to his superior, the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, in 1718. He apparently sent specimens to Michel S. Sarrazin (1659-1734) who, in the same year, described American ginseng and its discovery in Canada (Foster, 1986; Foster, 1989; Duke, 1989).

 Lafitau sent samples of dried roots to Jartoux. Jartoux showed them to Chinese merchants, and was able to arrange importation of the roots to China, provided they were cured as prescribed by the Chinese. Thus began the export of American ginseng to the Orient (Goldstein, 1975).
 American Ginseng Extract INCI Name Panax quinquefolius extract CAS 090045-38-8 Panax quinquefolium extract Ginsenosides photo picture image

 Distribution and Trade:

 Ginseng root has been sold in dried form for thousands of years, and to this day the overwhelming majority of ginseng root is sold dried. Ginseng extracts are generally made from Red Ginseng. Actually all Ginseng is white but when dried a certain way it creates "Red" Ginseng during the curing process.

 Ginseng is native to both Asia (Panax Ginseng) and North America (Panax Quinquefolius). American ginseng has been highly prized in Asia since the early 1800's (Daniel Boone was a "sang" hunter, harvesting and selling wild Ginseng whenever he found it). American ginseng contains roughly twice the number of active ginsenocides as Asian Ginseng. For the past century nearly 90% of all Ginseng root harvested in the USA has been exported to Asian markets. All dried ginseng roots sold by the Online Ginseng Store areCertified Panax Quinquefolius, and the roots are on average 4-6 years old. The roots have been cleaned and manicured, with the root hairs and tendrils removed.

 Panax quinquefolius occurs on rich, rocky, shaded, *cool slopes, preferring sweet soils. It is found in eastern North America, from Quebec to Manitoba, south to northern Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma. Its peak abundance is in the Cumberland Gap region of the southern Appalachian. Elsewhere it is rare (Eastman, 1976). Once considered frequent in eastern North America, it is now considered a threatened, rare, or endangered species in many areas due to overzealous harvest of the root for commercial purposes (Lewis and Zenger, 1982). The international trade of American ginseng is regulated under the provisions of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), which regulates trade through permit requirements for imports, exports, and re-exports of listed species. American ginseng is listed in CITES Appendix 11, controlling and monitoring its trade "in order to avoid utilization incompatible with [its] survival" (Singer, 1979). Harvest and commerce are regulated and restricted both jointly and separately by state agencies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the United States Department of Agriculture.

 Soon after American ginseng was discovered by Lafitau, exports of the root from Canada reached China. Early shipments from the U.S. went to the China by way of France or England. In 1773 a sloop, the "Hingham," carried 55 tons of ginseng from Boston. A direct shipment to China after the American Revolution was made in 1782 by a New York merchant, John Jacob Astor (Williams, 1957). For the four years in which records of ginseng exports were kept in the 1770s, an average of 140,000 pounds was exported each year. Near the turn of the eighteen and nineteenth centuries, ginseng exports -seem to virtually disappear (at least from government records).

 Pursh (1814, p. 19 1) observed the decline in interest in the plant, "it formerly was an article of exportation in America, but at present there is little demand for it." Jacob E. Bigelow (1824, p. 376) makes a similar observation, "The root of Ginseng is in high estimation among the Chinese and formerly constituted a profitable article of export to Canton."

 Export of wild-harvested root picked up again in the mid-nineteenth century. Exports of 1858 are documented at 366,053 pounds (Krochmal and Krochmal, 1977). Cultivation of American ginseng was begun in the 1870's by Abraham Whisman of Boones Path, Virginia. By 1895 there were about twenty ginseng growers. A USDA Bulletin on American ginseng cultivation, published in 1895 resulted in a boon of startup ginseng growers (Williams, 1957). In 1995 1,552,324 pounds (704,130 kg.) of cultivated ginseng root, valued at $44,905,434, was exported from the U.S., while 358,260 pounds (162,506 kg.) of wild-harvested root, valued at $31,457,267, was exported. (D. A. Purnphrey, 1996).

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last edit date:19th,June.2009.