198 Panax quinquefolium. 
semi-transparency, or resembling horn. The yellow colour so much 
valued by the Chinese in this root, is acquired during this process. 
When dried by fire or the sun’s rays, the roots are equally good, 
but destitute of the yellow colour. 
MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. 
As it is from the Chinese we first learned the medicinal vir- 
tues of Ginseng, it may be proper to specify the effects they attribute 
to it, previously to giving an opinion as to its real powers. It is al- 
most impossible to conceive of a substance capable of producing a 
series of more beneficial effects, on the human system, than those 
which the fashion, prejudice, or caprice of the Mandarins ascribed to 
the Ginseng. The Chinese physicians have, it is said by Jartoux, 
written volumes on the root, in praise of its various extraordinary 
powers, and it forms the base or chief ingredient in all their prescrip- 
tions for the highest classes of the population, and is never or rare- 
ly administered to the poor, because of its high price* as has al- 
ready been stated. They consider it asa sovereign remedy in all the 
diseases incidental to their climate and country; and yield no confi- 
dence to any medicine which is not combined with it. They say it 
gives instantaneous relief in cases of excessive mental or corporeal 
* The price at Pekin, is said to have been eight or nine times its weight in pure silver, 
and sometimes more ; according to Kalm, the price at Quebec, in 1748, was five to six 
livres a pound. The profit in China, must therefore have been immense. 
