GINSENG, also written gens-eng , ging-seng , and geng-seng : the most celebrated medicinal root in all of Asia.

This is that expensive and precious root that is collected with such ceremony in Tartary, which the Asians regard as a sovereign panacea, and on which Chinese physicians have written entire volumes where they describe it as spirituous simple , pure spirit of earth , and recipe for immortality .

This famous root is an inch or two long. Sometimes it is fatter than the little finger, and sometimes less, somewhat rough, shiny, and almost transparent; most often divided into two branches, sometimes into a greater number, bearing small fibers at the base; it is russet on the outside, yellowish inside, with a sour taste, a little bitter, aromatic, and with an herb odor that is not disagreeable.

The neck of this root it a tortuous weave of knots on which are infused alternatively, on one side or the other, the traces of the different shoots it has had and which thus indicate the age of the plant, given that it produces only one shoot per year, which emerges from the neck and rises to the height of one foot. This shoot is smooth and blackish-red.

From the top of this shoot sprout three or four tails hollowed like a drainpipe for half of their length, which extend horizontally and are arranged like radii or like a sort of parasol; each of the tails bears five unequal, thin, oblong, serrated, and shriveled leaves, tapering towards the point, and borne on the tail which is common to them by another little tail of varying size. The rib that divides each leaf sports veins that form a network by intertwining.

At the center of the knot where the tails of the leaves form there arises a simple, naked peduncle, of about five or six inches, terminated by a bouquet of small flowers or by an umbel with a very small envelope at its point of emergence. This umbel is composed of small, separate threads each of which supports a flower with a very small calyx, with five indentations, and borne on the embryo. The petals are five in number, oval, ending in a point, folded back under. The stamens also number five, are the same length as the petals, and each has a rounded head.

The stile is short and ordinarily split into two branches, sometimes into three or four, each of which is capped by a stigma; this stile rests on an embryo which as it matures becomes a rounded berry, deeply grooved, crowned and divided into as many loculi as there were branches in the stile. Each loculus contains a flat seed shaped like a kidney.

Place of origin . Ginseng grows in the thick forests of Tartary, on mountain slopes, between the 39 ^th and 47 ^th degrees of northern latitude and between the 10 ^th and 20 ^th degrees of eastern longitude measuring from the Peking meridian. The best grows in the mountains of Tsu-toang-seng; the kind that grows in Korea, which is called ninzin , [1] is thicker, soft, hollow inside, and greatly inferior to real ginseng .

Thus it is not true that this plant originated in China, as Father Martini says, [2] based on some Chinese books which have it growing in the province of Peking on the mountains of Yong-Pinfou; but it would have been easy to be mistaken about that, because that is where it arrives when it is brought into China from Tartary.

Apparatus with which this root is harvested, dried, and prepared . The places where ginseng is found are separated from the province of Quantong, called Leao-tong on our old maps, by a barrier of wooden piles that encloses this entire province, and near which guards continually patrol to prevent the Chinese from going hunting for this root. Yet whatever vigilance is used, the avidity for gain inspires the Chinese with the secret means of slipping into these uninhabited lands at the risk of losing their liberty and the fruit of their labors if they are caught leaving the province or returning to it.

The emperor who reigned in 1709, wishing the Tartars rather than the Chinese to benefit from this gain, had ordered ten thousand Tartars to go themselves to collect all the ginseng they could, on condition that each of them give his majesty two ounces of the best, and the rest would be bought at the price of refined silver. By this means they figured that the emperor would that year have about twenty thousand Chinese pounds, which would cost only a fourth of their value. Father Jartoux by chance came across some of those Tartars the same year in the middle of those ghastly wastelands. [3]

Here is the order followed by this army of herbalists. After dividing up the territory according to their standards, each troop numbering one hundred spreads out in a line up to a marked limit, keeping ten by ten a certain distance apart; they then carefully search for the plant in question, moving slowly forward in a single circle, and in this way they cover for a certain number of days the space that has been marked out for them.

Those who go in search of this plant keep only its root, and bury in a single place all they can collect in ten or fifteen days. They harvest it with much care and ceremony at the beginning of the spring and the end of autumn.

They take care to wash and clean it well, removing any foreign matter, with a knife made of bamboo [4] which they use to scrub it lightly; for they religiously avoid touching it with iron. Next they blanch it quickly in almost boiling water, and then they dry it by the smoke of a sort of yellow millet which gives it a little color. The millet, enclosed in a vase with water, simmers.

The roots, laid out on small wooden slats above the vase, dry slowly under cloth or under another vase covering them. Then they are also left to dry in the sun, or even by fire; but though they preserve their efficacy, they then lack the color which the Chinese prefer. When these roots are dry, they put them in well-washed and tightly-fitting copper vessels, or they simply keep them in some dry place. Without this precaution they would risk rotting promptly and being eaten by worms. They make an extract of the smallest roots and keep the leaves to use as they do tea.

Kaempfer’s relation of it . [5] To Father Jartoux’s details about this root it is well to add those of Kæmpfer which are fairly compatible, although he has given a very different description of it.

This plant, says the famous traveler, is, if we except tea, the most famous of all oriental plants because of its root, which is singularly sought after. The root that is brought from Korea into Japan, and is cultivated in the gardens of the city of Méaco, [6] grows better there than in its own country, but almost wholly lacks efficacy; the one that grows wild in the mountains of Kataja, where the air is colder, lasts longer; its root subsists and its leaves fall in the autumn; in Japan it produces several stalks laden with seeds, and dies most often within a year.

When the time to collect this root is near, guards are posted at all the entrances to the province of Siamsai to prevent thieves from taking any before the harvest.

After being newly pulled from the ground, these roots are made to macerate for three days in cold water in which rice has been boiled; once macerated, they are suspended in the steam of a covered cauldron placed on the fire; then, being half-dried, they acquire hardness and become russet, resinous, and almost transparent, which is a good sign. The largest fibers are prepared in the same manner.

Cost and choice of this root . The price of this root is so high among the Chinese that a pound is sold at the price of two or three pounds of silver: that is why it is customarily altered in various ways, and our spice merchants often substitute other exotic roots or that of white ben for it.

One must choose ginseng that is recently picked, aromatic, and not rotted or moldy, which is the usual case: I have seen some in 1734 at Séba’s, the entire amount that the Dutch East India company had received, and which he had just bought at that company’s public auction: in that quantity, which cost him several thousand florins to buy, at least one-fifth was spoiled.

Father Lafiteau seems to have found the same plant in Canada.

It is pointless to sow the seed of ginseng , either in China or in Japan: it dies, or the root which it grows is ineffective.

We knew of it only in the mountains of Tartary, as we have said, when Father Lafiteau, a Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois of Sault-Saint-Louis, naturally attracted to plants, and enlightened by the letter which Father Jartoux had written on ginseng , [7] began to look for it in the forests of Canada, and thought he had finally found it.

He has since supported his discovery in a book which he published in 1718 and which he distributed to the Academy of Sciences in the hopes of dissipating all their doubts. [8]

We find in this work a description of the ginseng of Canada, called garent oguen by the Iroquois, even more detailed that that of Father Jartoux. Garent oguen means two things separated, like two thighs . The name of gin seng or gins-eng similarly means, in Chinese, a man’s thighs, like a man, a man-plant .

M. de Jussieu sowed fairly fresh and well-prepared seeds of American ginseng which he had received from Father Lafitau in the royal garden; [9] but they did not succeed, so Canadian ginseng is even more rare in Europe than the Chinese. I say Canadian ginseng because all the presumptions seem to come together to consider the two ginsengs as the same plant.

The degree of latitude, the terroir, the position of the mountains, the view of the swamplands which are similar, the resemblance of the leaves, the peduncles, the flowers, fruits, stalks, the lively roots, and the effects, provide every reason to think that the American plant is the same as the Asian one. The usual transparency of the Chinese ginseng , which the Canadian ginseng lacks, is not a proof that they are two different plants; indeed, this transparency only results from the art and preparation almost always given to ginseng in China. But I have seen some in Holland that was natural, very old, and well preserved, which had acquired in aging neither the color nor the transparency of prepared ginseng . Thus time does not give it that quality, as it does sometimes to other juicy roots, to loose fibers which being very dry have much less capacity and look more or less like horn.

If this practice were attempted on the ginseng of Canada, there is no doubt it would succeed in making it look like Chinese prepared ginseng . M. Geoffroy, [10] who provided me with this observation, and who possessed in his natural history collection a very opaque piece of ginseng brought to France at some point by the ambassadors of Siam, adds ( Mémoires de l’Académie, 1740, p. 97 ) that he tried what I have just mentioned on several roots of umbelliferous plants, and particularly on root of skirret, which he made transparent simply by boiling it in ordinary water and then exposing it to the air to dry it out.

Finally, without it even being necessary to seduce the Chinese by any preparation, it is certain that they are unable to distinguish the pure and natural ginseng of Canada from that of Tartary. Our East India company, taking advantage of their mistake, shrewdly sells them one for the other, and has already managed so far (1757) to sell three to four thousand pounds of ginseng from New France in China.

Epoch of the knowledge of ginseng in Europe . The Chinese kind only began to be known in Europe in 1610, by curious Dutchmen who were the first to bring some back on their return from Japan. It sold then above its weight in gold. Meanwhile our nation could have heard about it before the arrival of the ambassadors from Siam in France, who among other presents gave some to Louis XIV.

The singular esteem which Asiatics have for ginseng . The Asiatics consider it as a supreme panacea. The wealthy and the lords of China have recourse to it in illnesses as the ultimate resource; I say the wealthy because it requires much wealth to make common use of this root as they do, a pound of which even in the East Indies is worth a hundred crowns [11] or so in French money. But the singular case which the Chinese and Japanese make of ginseng is even beyond its price.

If we are to believe the translation which Dr. Vandermonde [12] has given us of a Chinese author on the merits of this root, “it is useful,” says this author, “for diarrheas, dysenteries, derangement of the stomach and intestines, as in syncope, paralysis, swellings and convulsions; it revives in a surprising manner those who are exhausted by the pleasures of love; there is no remedy to be compared with it for those who are weakened by acute or chronic diseases. When smallpox, once erupted, ceases to spread, the patient’s strength being already diminished, a large dose meets with good success; finally, when it is taken several times, it re-establishes the diminished strength in a surprising manner; it increases perspiration; it spreads a gentle warmth through the body of the elderly, and strengthens all the members. Further, it restores so much strength even to those who are already in the throes of death that it buys time for them to take other remedies and often to recover their health.” These are admirable virtues, if they were true.

“However,” the Chinese writer continues, “ ginseng is of little assistance to those who eat a lot and those who drink wine: it must be used with care, and when the malign and epidemic fevers are declining; it must be carefully avoided in inflammatory illnesses, and given rarely for hemorrhages, and only after determining the cause. It will be tried in vain, though without danger, for scrofula, scurvy, and venereal diseases; but it fortifies and awakens the languishing; it agreeably aids those who are weighted down by long sorrows and by consumption, by using it prudently from a scrupulum [13] to a half-dram as infusion, as powder, as extract; or if one prefers, by mixing it with other medicines, from six to sixty grains, and even more in certain cases and as necessity requires.”

One cannot help, after reading this panegyric, taking it rather as the work of a missionary doctor translated into Chinese than the work of a Chinese doctor translated into French.

Use of ginseng in Europe and its relative ineffectiveness . In any event, we are content in Europe to prescribe ginseng sometimes for weakness, for cardialgia, syncopes, nerve pains, and vertigoes resulting from inanition, as also for exhaustion of the spirits caused by the pleasures of love, by remedies or illnesses.

We give this root as a powder or infusion in boiling water, from a scrupulum to a dram; or else one takes, for example, two scrupula of ginseng ; orange or lemon peel fifteen grains; castoreum, five grains: after it is all pulverized, one adds some conserve to form a bolus.

Its agreeable odor, its sweet, somewhat sour flavor mixed with something bitter seems to indicate that it must possess virtues analogous to those of angelica and meum.

Father Jartoux claims to have tested on himself, while he was in Tartary, the salutary virtues of ginseng after such an exhaustion of work and fatigue that he could not even stay on a horse. I also know that other persons maintain they have had the same experience in our climes, with surprising success. But some famous physicians on whose testimony we can surely rely, and I must place Boerhaave as first among them, have told me that they have given, repeated, and lavished as much as two full ounces of the best and most costly ginseng as bolus, as powder, and as infusions, in cases where it could best succeed, to people who desired it and had great hopes for the efficacy of that remedy, without nevertheless seeing much of any other marked effects apart from an increase in the strength and rapidity of the pulse.

If one has difficulty imagining that entire peoples should make so much of this root over time, misleading themselves perpetually about its success, we will have to conclude that it acts more powerfully on their bodies than on ours, or that it possesses qualities when it is fresh which it loses from aging, being transported, and before reaching us. Moreover, a great disadvantage to its use in Europe is that it is rare to get the good kind without mold on it. I am not speaking of its price, because there are many people able to pay for it if its efficacy justified the price.

Mr. Réneaume, [14] in the Histoire de l’Académie des sciences for the year 1718 , puts great trust in hepatica to compensate us for ginseng ; but this vulnerary European plant does not match the properties attributed to the Asian root.

On its market in China and in Europe . All the ginseng that is collected in Tartary each year, the value of which we do not know, has to be taken to the customs of the emperor of China, who collects two ounces for the capitation rights of each Tartar employed in this harvest; then the emperor pays for the surplus at a certain value, and has all that he does not want resold in his empire at a much higher price, where it is sold in his name, and this sale is always assured.

It is by this means that the European nations trafficking in China obtain it, and in particular the Dutch East India company, which buys almost all of what is consumed in Europe.

I have never been able to learn the quantity that company imports each year to sell. The Amsterdam brokers I have consulted, and who could have known, have not been willing to bother themselves to find out. For me that was a simple object of sterile curiosity; but there is such a thing as knowledge of the consumption of certain drugs able to produce the execution of advantageous projects for the good of the state, if those who govern took to heart these sorts of objects of trade.

Writers on ginseng . The curious can consult the letter of Father Jartoux to be found in the Lettres édifiantes, volume X , [15] not to mention that the figure he gives of this plant is likely the best.

Father Lafiteau, Mémoire sur le ginseng , Paris 1718, in-12 . [16]

Kæmpfer, Amoenitates exot. Lemgov, 1712, in-4° . [17]

Breynius, Tractatus de gins-eng radice, Leiden, 1706, in-4° . [18]

Andr. Bleyer, Ephimer nat. curios., Dec. 2, observ. 2. [19]

Christianus Mentzelius, ibid., Dec. 2, year 5, observat. xxxix , with figures taken from Chinese herbalists and other authors. [20]

Sebastien Vaillant, Établissement d’un genre de plante nommé arialastrum, dont le gins-eng est une espece, Hanover, 1718, in -4°. [21]

Bernard Valentini, Historia simplicium reformata, Frankfurt, 1716, in-fol. [22]

Plucknet, in his Phytographia, London, 1696, in-fol. has given a rather good image, tab. 101, number vii; [23] that of Bontius is false; that of Pison, Mantissa aromatica,194 is imprecise; that of Catesby, London, 1748, in-fol. is unusually beautiful. [24]

See also the thesis of Jacques François Vandermonde, [25] or the abstract of this thesis which is in the Journal des savans, October, 1736.

I realize that our travelers to China, or those who have written descriptions of that country, also have said a lot about ginseng, among others John Ogilby, Histoire de la Chine, London, 1673, in-fol. in English; [26] Father Martini, in his Atlas; [27] Father Kircker, in his Chine illustrée; [28] Father Tachard, in his Voyage de Siam; [29] the author of Ambassade des Hollandais à la Chine, part II, chapter iii, Father Le Comte, in his Mémoires de la Chine, vol. I, p. 496, [30] and many others. But almost all the details of these various writers are subject to error, or better said, full of errors.

1. Also known as panax ginseng.

2. Martino Martini (1614–1661), Jesuit missionary, author of many books on China including an Atlas sinesis , 1654.

3. Pierre Jartoux (1669–1720), Jesuit missionary, astronomer and cartographer.

4. The original says rambou , which is perhaps not a mistake since according to the Dictionnaire de Trévoux , bambou is also called mambou and voulou .

5. Englebert Kämpfer (1651–1716), German naturalist and explorer, author of Amœnitatum exoticarum (1712).

6. Late medieval name for Kyoto.

7. Pierre Jartoux, “Lettre du Père Jartoux au Père Procureur général des missions des Indes et de la Chine ,” 12 avril 1711, in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses concernant l'Asie, l'Afrique et l'Amérique (1843 ed., vol. 3, pp. 183–187).

8. Jean François Lafitau (1681–1746) created a sensation in 1718 with his Mémoire presenté à son altesse royale Monseigneur le duc d’Orleans [...] concernant la précieuse plante du gin-seng de Tartarie, découverte en Canada, which launched a sort of gold rush.

9. Antoine de Jussieu (1686– 1758) was professor of botany at the Jardin du roi.

10. Claude Joseph Geoffroy (1685–1752), apothecary and botanist, member of the Academy of Sciences.

11. Écus : one écu is three livres in France.

12. Jacques François Vandermonde: see note 20.

13. Twenty grains.

14. Michel Louis Reneaulme de Lagranne (1676–1739), member of the Academy of Sciences.

15. See note 7.

16. See note 8.

17. See note 5.

18. Johann Philipp Breyne (1680–1764); the specific treatise mentioned has not been identified.

19. Academiæ Cæsareo-Leopoldinæ naturæ curiosum ephemerides.

20. Christian Menzel (1622-1701), Prussian physician, botanist, and sinophile.

21. Sébastien Vaillant (1669-1722), French botanist, who set up the pharmaceutical collection at the Jardin du roi

22. Michael Bernhard Valentini (1657-1729), Historia simplicium reformata (Frankfurt, 1716).

23. Leonard Plukenet (1642-1706), (Phytographia Sive Stirpium (London, 1691-1696).

24. Mark Catesby (1683–1749): there were many editions of his Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands and its plates were widely reproduced. The other references are to the Dutch physician Jacobus Bontius (1592-1631), who spent time in the East with the Dutch East India Company; and Willem Piso (1611-1678), De Indiae utriusque re naturali et medica (Amsterdam, 1658), which includes his Mantissa aromatica .

25. Actually the thesis of Folliot de Saint Vast at which Jacques François Vandermonde presided: Resp. Quæstio medica, An infirmis a morbo viribus reparandis Gin Seng? Præs. F. Vandermonde , 1736.

26. The reference is to a work translated and published by John Ogilby: Johannes Nieuhof (1618-1672), An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, emperor of China (London, 1673).

27. See note 2.

28. Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680), China monumentis (Amsterdam, 1667).

29. Guy Tachard (1651-1712), Voyage de Siam, des peres jesuites, envoyez par le roy aux Indes et à la Chine (Paris, 1686).

30. Louis Le Comte, S.J., Nouveaux memoires sur l’etat present de la Chine (Paris, 1696) ; the page reference should be 468ff.