Birds and all Nature, Vol. V, No. 2, February 1899

Birds and all Nature, Vol. V, No. 2, February 1899
Various

Various

Birds and all Nature, Vol. V, No. 2, February 1899

GINGER

Zingiber officinale Roscoe

DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER,

Northwestern University School of Pharmacy

"And ginger shall be hot i' the mouth, too."

    – Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II., 3.
THE well-known spice ginger is the underground stem (rhizome) of an herbaceous reed-like plant known as Zingiber officinale. The rhizome is perennial, but the leaf and flower-bearing stems are annual. The stems are from three to six feet high. The leaves of the upper part of the stem are sword-shaped; the lower leaves are rudimentary and sheath-like. The flowers occur in the form of conical spikes borne upon the apex of stems which bear only sheath-like leaves.

The ginger plant is said to be a native of southern Asia, although it is now rarely found growing wild. It is very extensively cultivated in the tropical countries of both hemispheres, particularly in southern China, India, Africa, and Jamaica. The word ginger is said to have been derived from the Greek "Zingiber," which again was derived from the Arabian "Zindschabil," which means the "root from India." It is further stated that the word was derived from Gingi, a country west of Pondecheri where the plant is said to grow wild.

True ginger must not be confounded with "wild ginger," which is a small herbaceous plant (Asarum canadense) of the United States. The long, slender rhizomes of Asarum have a pungent, aromatic taste similar to ginger. According to popular belief this plant has a peculiar charm. Friends provided with the leaves are enabled to converse with each other, though many miles apart and speaking in the faintest whisper.

The early Greeks and Romans made extensive use of ginger as a spice and as a medicine. During the third century it was apparently a very costly spice, but during the eleventh century it became cheaper, owing to extensive cultivation, and was quite generally used in Europe. Dioscrides and Plinius maintained that this spice was derived chiefly from Arabia. The noted traveler and historian, Marco Polo (1280-1290) is said to have been the first European who saw the wild-growing plant in its home in India. As early as the thirteenth century a considerable number of varieties of ginger were under cultivation, which received distinctive names as Beledi, Colombino, Gebeli, Deli, etc., usually named after the country or locality from which it was obtained.

At the present time Jamaica supplies the United States with nearly all of the ginger, and this island is, therefore, known as "the land of ginger." Cochin-China and Africa also yield much ginger. In Jamaica the process of cultivation is somewhat as follows: During March and April portions of rhizomes, each bearing an "eye" (bud), are placed in furrows about one foot apart and covered with a few inches of soil. The lazy planter leaves portions of the rhizomes in the soil from year to year so as to avoid the necessity of planting, such ginger being known as "ratoon ginger" in contradistinction to the "plant ginger." The planted ginger soon sprouts, sending up shoots which require much sunlight and rain, both of which are plentiful in Jamaica. The field should be kept free from weeds which is not generally done for several reasons. In the first place pulling the weeds is apt to loosen the soil about the rhizomes which induces the development of "ginger rot," perhaps due to a fungus. Secondly, the Jamaica ginger planter is naturally lazy and does not like to exert himself. The careful planter burns the soil over before planting so as to destroy the seeds of weeds. In brief it may be stated that ginger is planted, tended, and gathered much as potatoes are in the United States. As soon as gathered the rhizomes are freed from dirt, roots, and branches and thrown into a vessel of water preparatory to peeling. Peeling consists in removing the outer coat by means of a narrow-bladed knife. As soon as peeled the rhizomes are again thrown into water and washed. The object of keeping the "roots" in water and washing them frequently is to produce a white article. To this end bleaching by means of burning sulphur and chlorine fumes has been resorted to. Some ginger, especially that of Jamaica, is dusted over with powdered lime; this colors the ginger white very effectively. The bleaching processes also serve to destroy parasites which may infest the ginger before it is thoroughly dried.

The drying or curing of ginger is done in the sun. A piece of ground is leveled and laid with stone and cement. Upon this the rhizomes are spread from day to day for from six to eight days. At night and during rains they are placed under cover. The small planter does the curing upon mats of sticks, boards, palm or banana leaves raised somewhat above the ground. Very frequently the drying is done upon leaves placed directly upon the ground.

Not by any means all the ginger upon the market is peeled. The Jamaica ginger usually is; the African ginger is usually unpeeled, and hence dark in color; the Chinese ginger is usually partially peeled. Peeling makes the product appear whiter and hastens drying very materially, but much of the ethereal oil and active principle is thereby lost since it occurs most plentifully in the outer coat.

The ginger crop impoverishes the soil very rapidly; every few years a new field must be planted. Forest soil is said to yield the best crops and in Jamaica thousands of acres of forest are annually destroyed by fire to prepare new ginger fields. Ginger appears upon the market either whole or ground. Unfortunately the ground article is oftentimes adulterated; for instance, with sago, tapioca, potato, wheat, and rice starch, with cayenne pepper, mustard, and other substances.

Ginger has been an important commercial and household article ever since the first century of our era. Poets and prose writers of the past and present have praised ginger and the many preparations having ginger in composition, because of their aromatic pungent taste and stimulating effect. The opening quotation from Shakespeare indicates the properties of ginger. That it was a highly-valued spice during the time of Mandeville (1300-1372) is evident from a quotation from his "travels."

"Be alle that contree growe the gode gyngevere (ginger), and therefore thidre gon the Marchauntes for Spicerye."

Green ginger pickled in sugar was highly prized during the middle ages. There are a number of beverages which contain ginger. Gingerade is water charged with carbonic acid gas and flavored with ginger, being almost identical with ginger-pop. Ginger-beer is prepared by fermenting cream-of-tartar, ginger, and sugar with yeast and water. Ginger-ale is supposed to be identical with ginger-beer. These ginger drinks are all refreshing, but I believe my readers will agree that there is usually too much ginger present; the hot, burning sensation in the mouth is not very pleasant. It may be that the trouble lies in taking too much of the drink at a time.

In my estimation ginger as used by the baker is most appreciated and here again I believe my readers will agree with me. Who has not heard of ginger-bread? This sweet cake flavored with ginger is not by any means of recent origin. The great English bard Chaucer sang its praises long ago (1328-1400):

"They fette him first the sweete wyn,
And mede eek in a maselyn,
And roial spicerye
Of ginge breed that was full fyn."

Shakespeare also must have valued this bread very highly, for in the play, "Love's Labor Lost," he says:

"An I had but one penny in the world thou shouldst have it to buy ginger-bread."

Ginger-bread is often made into fanciful shapes. Cats, dogs, horses, elephants and men are cut out of the rolled dough and then baked. Many of my readers are perhaps familiar with some of the beautiful playtime songs of Alice Riley and Jessie Gaynor. The following are the words of one of these songs, entitled, "The Ginger-bread Man." It describes the ginger-bread man very beautifully in the first verse. His awful fate, evidently in the hands of a small cannibal, is very graphically described in the second verse. I regret being wholly unable to supply the music. Here are the words by Alice Riley:

"Oh the ginger-bread man, the ginger-bread man,
The round little, brown little ginger-bread man,
He has sugary eyes and a sugary nose,
And he's sweet from his crown to his sugary toes,
Is this dear little, queer little ginger-bread man,
This dear little ginger-bread man.

"Oh the ginger-bread man, the ginger-bread man,
The poor little, sad little ginger-bread man,
For he lost his poor arms, and he lost both his feet,
And he lost his poor head, it was so good to eat,
And his vest buttons tasted uncommonly sweet,
Ah, poor little ginger-bread man."

Gingersnaps are very much liked by many. I used to demolish them by the pound until someone whispered in my ear that "bad eggs were used in making them." Since then my appetite for gingersnaps has lessened. I hope what that man said is not true. Gingernut is another cake containing ginger and sweetened with molasses.

At the present time ginger is not very extensively used as a medicine. The powder or tincture is effective in some forms of indigestion. It is used to correct a bad breath, in tooth-ache, as a gargle and mouth-wash, in colic, and in dysentery. In a German work on pharmacy I find that it is recommended in catarrh of the stomach and for "Katzenjammer." It will not be necessary to explain Katzenjammer means.

SAP ACTION

FRED. A. WATT

IN order to understand this subject we must first ascertain the conditions under which sap is first produced, what it is, and how it circulates.

To do this we must first know something of the structure of those parts of the tree which serve as channels, or ducts, and those other parts which gather the sap and dispose of the waste after it has completed its mission.

To begin with, the tree is composed of small structures, too small for the naked eye to distinguish. Each structure is, at least for a time, a whole in itself, containing solid, semi-solid, and fluid parts which differ in their chemical nature. These structures are the cells, and when a large number of them are united in close contact they form a cellular tissue through which the sap passes from the roots to the leaves, and from the leaves to the growing parts of the young tree, or shoot.

This cellular tissue is superseded by another tissue which is much stronger and which takes up the work of the cellular tissue, when the tree becomes too large to be supported by the weaker form. It is more solidly formed and is composed of elongated cells which are joined together in a series with their ends overlapping. This is known as woody fiber. The cellular tissue now exists in the tree stem only in the pith, and in the medullary rays which we see in the grain of any hard wood, radiating from the pith.

With the statement, then, that these tissues form the timber, and that the bark and roots only present a modification of the same structures, we will pass to the tree as we see it with the naked eye.

If we saw the trunk of a tree, of any considerable size, squarely in two, we find three forms which differ in solidity, rigidity, and appearance; namely, the heart-wood, sap-wood, and bark. The heart-wood is the firm, solid wood surrounding the center of the tree, the sap-wood is the softer wood outside the heart-wood, while the bark forms the skin or outer covering for the whole.

Trees grow from the center outward, hence the present sap-wood will in time become heart-wood and be covered by a new layer of sap-wood, and the present heart-wood is simply sap-wood which has become solidified by the deposit within its tissues of resinous and other matter secreted by the tree. It is now useless for sap-carrying purposes and seems to exercise only the function of supporting the tree in its position. It is through the outer, younger layer or sap-wood that the sap ascends.

Now, if we examine the end of our stick more closely we see a series of rings, clearly marked, circling from the center of the tree and ranging in size from the tiny one which encloses the pith, to the large one which forms the outer surface next to the bark. They are caused by a constant annual deposit and outward growth, by which a layer is added to the outer surface of the sap-wood each season. Hence, by counting these we may determine the age of the tree. Less distinct rings may appear but they will not deceive us as we know that they are caused by a cessation of growth, which may have been caused by drouth.

As a general rule these rings are more distinct in trees inhabiting a climate where vegetation is entirely suspended by the cold after each layer is formed. In warmer regions they are not so distinct. This is especially interesting when we study fossils of trees which in many cases show a great difference in climatic conditions in the early ages from those we have at the present time.

The layers of bark are much thinner than those of the wood and are not so readily distinguished. They are formed from the interior so that the oldest are on the outside. The older ones fall off, however, so that we cannot trace as many rings in the bark as we can in the wood, although one is formed in each for every season that the tree lives.

The roots of the tree spread out underground and are the agents through which the tree derives most of the moisture so necessary to its growth. They absorb moisture only at their extremities and usually spread to just such an extent that the water which falls off the outer branches of a tree during a rain, falls exactly where the tender rootlets can gather it up at once and hurry it back up the trunk of the tree. In ground that is springy, or naturally moist, the roots do not depend so much on the rainfall but reach out after moisture wherever it exists in the soil.

Spring seems to give a new impulse to life, especially to vegetable life, which always responds promptly to the genial rays of the sun. During the winter, in our climate, the cells which form our trees are contracted by the cold and when the warm days cause them to resume their natural size, a small vacuum is formed in each cell, which the first warm days proceed to enlarge by thawing only the trunk and branches of the tree, leaving the roots below embedded in frozen soil from which but little moisture can be drawn, while evaporation draws moisture from the trunk and branches with irresistible force. A warm rain now comes, thaws out the soil, and sets the juices therein contained in motion. An immediate rush of sap up the trunk of the tree is the result. It clears out the pores or channels, as a spring freshet clears out the water courses, it rushes into the branches, and the branches rejoice and put on their livery of green; it rushes out through the porous surface of the limbs and rises in the air in the form of vapor, while that which does not escape becomes charged with life and returns down a devious pathway and lays the foundation for another season's growth.

But why should the sap ascend the tree?