Herbal remedy of cold and cough

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Jamayet Ali
Ginger, one of the best-known spices, is highly esteemed for its pleasant and aromatic odour and pungent taste. It is a herbaceous, rhizomatous perennial, reaching up to 90cm. in height under cultivation. It was known in China as early as 400 B.C. It was also used as a spice by the Greeks and the Romans who considered it an Arabian product because it was received from India by the way of the Red Sea. It was introduced into Jamaica and other islands of the West Indies by the Spiniards, and ginger was exported from the West Indies to Spain in considerable quantity even during the year 1547 A.D. Experts express opinion that the ginger is not known in a truly wild state, but is doubtless a native of Tropical Asia, in which it has been cultivated and exported from very remote times. From Asia it was introduced into West Indies, where it is now abundant. From the East and West Indies it has spread throughout the warmer parts of the world.

Botanical name of the ginger is Zingiber officinale, Roscoe. It is used in dried, preserved and green forms. Dried ginger enters international trade in a far larger quantity than either of the other two forms. It is widely used for flavouring a great variety of foods, for the preparation of extracts and for the distillation of volatile oil. Green ginger is the raw rhizome and substantial quantities of it are locally used as a condiment in culinary preparations. Some quantity is also utilized in the preparation of pickles, canned ginger, and soft drinks. It is widely cultivated in Bangladesh, India and other tropical countries of Asia.

Analysis of edible 100 gms. of green ginger gave the following values:- moisture, 80.9; protein, 2.3; fat, 0.9; fibre, 2.4; carbohydrates, 12.3; and minerals, 1.2%; calcium, 20; phosphorus, 60; and iron, 2.6 mg./100g. The vitamins present in green ginger are: thiamine, 0.06; riboflavin, 0.03; niacin, 0.60; and vitamin C, 6.0 mg/100g. The value reported for carotene in the fresh rhizome is 40 µg/100g. (Food Processes and Analyses, Mohammad Yunus, 49; The Wealth of India, 99).

Medicinal Properties: The rhizome is sweet, pungent, heating; appetizer; laxative, stomachic, aphrodisiac, carminative; useful in diseases of the heart and the throat, dyspepsia, inflammations, "kafa" and "vata", bronchitis, asthma, vomiting, pains; should not be used in leucoderma, anaemia, strangury, leprosy, ulcers, fevers, burning sensations, diseases of the blood. Ginger is pungent; stomachic, aphrodisiac, laxative, alexiteric; improves taste; useful in indigestion, vomiting, pains, asthma, bronchitis, diseases of the heart, elephantiasis, piles, eructations, abdominal troubles, scorpion-sting, snake-bite ( Ayurveda ).

The rhizome has a sharp taste, pungent; stomachic, aphrodisiac, tonic, expectorant, carminative; removes pain due to cold, worm from the brain; gives luster to the eye. Ginger is anthelmintic; good in piles, rheumatism, headache, lumbago, pains (Yunani). Among the Mundas of Chota Nagpur, the fresh root is ground and mixed either with honey or with clarified butter and held over a fire till pasty, when it is made into pills, which are used as a remedy against cough, the dose being about four a day.

The plant is used in Guiana and Guinea, as an aromatic, stomachic and stimulant. In Cambodia, the rhizome is given internally as an aromatic tonic; externally it is applied to boils and enlarged glands. In China and Malaya, ginger is largely used as a condiment and in domestic medicine. It is prescribed as an adjunct to many tonic and stimulant remedies. The root skin is used as a carminative and is said to be a remedy for opacity of the cornea. In Perak, thin dry slices of the root are sold as a well-known vermifuge.

Dry ginger enters as an ingredient into several combinations in the Indian Pharmacopoeia, Vaidyans attribute to this drug stimulant, digestive and carminative properties. The fresh juice of the drug acted as a strong diuretic. The patients passed gradually increasing quantities of urine daily. It did not prove efficacious in dropsy of chronic Bright's disease and chronic heart disease; on the other hand, such cases became worse under its use. Long-standing cases of cirrhosis with ascites did not derive the slightest benefit from its administration (Koman). Ginger is a well-known popular remedy for snake-bite and scorpion-sting; but it is not an antidote to either snake-venom (Mhaskar and Caius) or scorpion-venom (Caius and Mhaskar). ( Indian Medicinal Plants, Kirt. and Basu, 2436,2437 ).

Ginger has long been known both to Sanskrit and Muhammadan medicine. By writers on the former it is described as acrid, heating, carminative, rubefacient, and useful in dyspepsia, affections of the throat, head and chest, hoemorrhoids, rheumatism, urticaria ( nettle-rash ), dropsy and many other diseases. The dried rhizome is believed to possess all the properties of the green and to be laxative in addition . Ginger with salt, taken before meals is highly praised as a carminative, is said to purify the tongue and throat, increase the appetite and produce an "agreeable sensation". In cephalalgia and other affections of the head, ginger juice mixed with milk is used as a snuff, the fresh juice taken with honey is supposed to relieve catarrh, cough and loss of appetite ( U.C. Dutt ). Many prescriptions of Chakradatta and from the Bhavaprakasha are translated in the Hindu Materia Medica, to which the reader is referred for further information. The properties ascribed to the drug by Muhammadan writers are similar. Fresh ginger is much employed as a domestic medicine, the juice with sugar or honey being prescribed for colds, coughs and with the addition of lime-juice, in bilious dyspepsia. The juice with an equal portion of tulsi juice and a little honey and burnt pea-cocks' feathers is a popular remedy for vomiting in Bombay ( Dymock ).The uses of ginger in European medicine, in which it is one of the most highly valued of all mild carminatives and enters into many officinal preparations, are too well known to require mention in this work.

"The gingers at present found in the London market are distinguished as Jamaica, Cochin, Bengal, and African. Jamaica ginger is the sort most esteemed; and next to it the Cochin. Scraped or decorticated ginger is often bleached, either by being subjected to the fumes of burning sulphur or by immersion, for a short time in a solution of chlorinated lime. Much of that seen in grocers' shops looks as if it had been white-washed, and in fact is slightly coated with calcareous matter" (Pharmacographia).(A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, G. Watt, Vol. VI, Part IV, 363, 364).