Galangal

[Guest guest]

Galangal

Botanical: Alpinia officinarum (HANCE.)

Family: N.O. Zingaberaceae or Scilaminae

Description

Constituents

Medicinal Action and Uses

Dosage

---Synonyms---Galanga. China Root. India Root. East India Catarrh Root.

Lesser Galangal. Rhizoma Galangae. Gargaut. Colic Root. Kaempferia

Galanga.

---Part Used---Dried rhizome.

---Habitat---China (Hainan Island), Java.

---Description---The genus Alpinia was named by Plumier after Prospero

Alpino, a famous Italian botanist of the early seventeenth century. The

name Galangal is derived from theArabic Khalanjan, perhaps a perversion

of a Chinese word meaning 'mild ginger.'

The drug has been known in Europe for seven centuries longer than its

botanical origin, for it was only recognized in 1870, when specimens

were examined that had been found near Tung-sai, in the extreme south of

China, and later, on the island of Hainan, just opposite. The name of

Alpinia officinarum was given to the herb, as the source of Lesser

Galangal. The Greater Galangal is a native of Java (A. Galanga or

Maranta Galanga), and is much larger, of an orange-brown colour, with a

feebler taste and odour. It is occasionally seen at London drug sales,

but is scarcely ever used. There is also a resemblance to A.

calcarata.The herb grows to a height of about 5 feet, the leaves being

long, rather narrow blades, and the flowers, of curious formation,

growing in a simple, terminal spike, the petals white, with deep-red

veining distinguishing the lippetal.

The branched pieces of rhizome are from 1 1/2 to 3 inches in length, and

seldom more than 3/4 inch thick. They are cut while fresh, and the

pieces are usually cylindrical, marked at short intervals by narrow,

whitish, somewhat raised rings, which are the scars left by former

leaves. They are dark reddish-brown externally, and the section shows a

dark centre surrounded by a wider, paler layer which becomes darker in

drying. Their odour is aromatic, and their taste pungent and spicy. They

are tough and difficult to break, the fracture being granular, with

small, ligneous fibres interspersed throughout one side. The drug is

exported, chiefly from Shanghai, in bales made of split cane, plaited,

and bound round with cane. The root has been used in Europe as a spice

for over a thousand years, having probably been introduced by Arabian or

Greek physicians, but it has now largely gone out of use except in

Russia and India. Closely resembling ginger, it is used in Russia for

flavouring vinegar and the liqueur 'nastoika': it is a favourite spice

and medicine in Lithuania and Esthonia. Tartars prepare a kind of tea

that contains it, and it is used by brewers. The reddishbrown powder is

used as snuff, and in India the oil is valued in perfumery.

---Constituents---The root contains a volatile oil, resin, galangol,

kaempferid, galangin and alpinin, starch, etc. The active principles are

the volatile oil and acrid resin. Galangin is dioxyflavanol, and has

been obtained synthetically. Alcohol freely extracts all the properties,

and for the fluid extract there should be no admixture of water or

glycerin.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Stimulant and carminative. It is

especially useful in flatulence, dyspepsia, vomiting and sickness at

stomach, being recommended as a remedy for sea-sickness. It tones up the

tissues and is sometimes prescribed in fever. Homoeopaths use it as a

stimulant. Galangal is used in cattle medicine, and the Arabs use it to

make their horses fiery. It is included in several compound

preparations, but is not now often employed alone.

The powder is used as a snuff for catarrh.

---Dosage---From 15 to 30 grains in substance, and double in infusion.

Fluid extract, 30 to 60 minims.

[Top]

 

Common Name Index

A MODERN HERBAL Home Page

 

Copyright 1995 © Electric Newt

 

Love, Hugs, and Kisses

Renee and Jerry