What is Ginger and what are the usages of ginger as remedy (medicine).

Ginger is cultivated on a liarge scale, in the warm, moist regions of many part of India. It is a perennial creeper, the root of which grows underground in tuberous joints. In the spring, it sends up a green reedlike stalk, around 2 feet hight, with narrow lanceolate leaves. The flowers are greenish with a small dark purple or purplish black lip, in radical spikes. The rhizome is stout and tuberous with erect leafy stems. The leaves are narrow, distichous, subsessile on the sheaths, linerlanceolate, wide and glabrous. The flowers and bruised stem have a characteristic fragrance.

The rhizome is considered as the most useful part of the plant. It has appetizing, carminative, stomachic, laxative and aphrodisiac properties. The dried rhizome is commonly used as a spice in the preparation of pickles, condiments, curries and ginger bread. The outer skin should be thinly peeled so that the richest part of the resin and volatile oil is not lost.

The fresh rhizome is ground, mixed either with honey or clarified butter and held over the fire till it forms a paste, after which it is made into pills, which are used to treat cough. The juice of fresh ginger in gradually increasing doses, is a strong diuretic in cases of general dropsy. If the juice is administrated to patients suffering from ascites with dropsy due to cirrhosis of the liver, there can be a complete subsidence of ascites and disappearance of dropsy. Ginger juice, water and sugar in sufficient quantities, boiled to the consistency of a syrup, to which is added the powder of saffron, cardamom, nutmeg and cloves is effective in cold, cough, asthma dyspepsia and indigestion. For indigestion associated with loss of appetite, equal parts of ginger juice, lemon juice and rock salt, can be taken just before meals. Hoarseness and loss of voice are sometimes treated by chewing a piece of ginger, so as to produce a copious flow of saliva.

A mixture of ginger and onion juice relives nausea, vomiting and retching. Ginger juice given twice daily is a good remedy for diabetes of all types. Dry ginger is generally given as a corrective adjuvant to purgatives. It is useful in diseases of the heart, asthma, bronchitis, dyspepsia and inflammations. It should not be used for leucoderma, seprosy, ulcer, strangury, fevers, anaemia and diseases of the blood. It is a long pepper, as an adjunct, which is known as TRIKATU. It is extremely valuable in flatulence, colic, spasms, painful affections of the stomach and in bowel disorders.

Ginger is a wellknown and popular remedy for snakebite and scorpion sting but is not an antidote to either snake or scorpion venom.