What Is Ginger Used for Today? | What Is the Scientific Evidence
for Ginger? | Safety Issues | Interactions You Should Know About
Native to southern Asia, ginger is a 2- to 4-foot-long perennial
that produces grass-like leaves up to a foot long and almost an
inch wide. Although it is called ginger root in the grocery
store, the part of the herb used is actually the rhizome, the
underground stem of the plant, with its bark-like outer covering
scraped off. Ginger has been used as food and medicine for
millennia. Arabian traders carried ginger root from China and
India to be used as a food spice in ancient Greece and Rome, and
tax records from the second century AD show that ginger was a
delightful source of revenue to the Roman treasury. Chinese
medical texts from the fourth century BC suggest that ginger is
effective in treating nausea, diarrhea, stomachaches, cholera,
toothaches, bleeding, and rheumatism. Ginger was later used by
Chinese herbalists to treat a variety of respiratory conditions,
including cough