Chinese medicine ginger

The most ancient uses of spices appear to be therapeutic in nature. The use of spices was common in China but tittle, if any, authentic Chinese records exist to confirm this. According to Chinese myths and legends, Shen Nung, the Divine Cultivator, founded Chinese medicine and discovered the curative powers of many herbs. He is said to have described more than 100 plants in a treatise reportedly written in 2700 BC. It has been shown, however, that no written language was available in China at that time. Although some of the herbal uses in the treatise go back several centuries BC, the work seems to have been produced by unknown authors in the first century AD. Other records on the use of cassia and ginger are known to have been written in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, in the latter case by Confucius. 

On the evaluation of the preparation of Chinese medicinal prescriptions (V). Diterpenes from Japanese ginger kintoki . Shoyakugaku Zasshi 1990 44(1) 55-57. 

Naora et al. (1992) evaluated the potential of ginger as a cardiotonic and analgesic. Preparations of the rhizomes are used in traditional Chinese medicine as an antipyretic, cardiotonic, anticonvulsive or... 

Sho-saiko-to is a so-called kampo medicine, a mixture of herbs, including Chinese date, ginger root, and licorice root. It is reportedly contraindicated in patients taking interferons, patients with liver cirrhosis or hepatoma, and patients with chronic hepatitis and a platelet count of 100 X 10 /1 (http //www.kamponews.com). Sho-saiko-to has repeatedly been imphcated in interstitial or eosinophihc pneumonias. 

A text on traditional Chinese medicine notes that while prepared Sichuan aconite is recognized to be toxic, if the appropriate dosage of the prepared root is combined with other appropriate ingredients such as ginger and licorice, and the patient is carefully instructed on the method of proper decoction, little likelihood of toxicity exists (Bensky et al. 2004). 

As shown in Scheme 11.53, a minor change in the direction of oxidation can account for the formation of aristolone, isolated from both the root of the Chinese fairy vine and the rhizome of Canadian ginger and widely used in traditional medicines. It is of some interest that a few sesquiterpene (and diterpene, vide infra) alcohols are found in these vines along with one of the few nitro group containing natural products, aristolochic acid. 

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