PHARMACOPGIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
as well as being most satisfactory in acute cystitis. The Medical News, 
August 10, 1881, commended a decoction of corn silk in the afore- 
named directions, and in the Therapeutic Gazette (634), February, 
1881, Professor L. W. Benson reported that in his practice the remedy 
acted very favorably and kindly. Following this, various contributions 
appeared in the foreign medical journals, one by Dr. Dufau in the 
London Medical Record, spoke of it as a little known, newly intro- 
duced remedy. Many commendatory articles followed this in Euro- 
pean medical journals, which fact, together with the increased demand 
on American manufacturing pharmacists, led to its introduction into 
the Pharmacopeia of the United States. 
ZINGIBER 
Ginger, Zingiber officinale, is a reed-like plant native to Asia, 
but has been introduced to most tropical countries, and grows freely in 
some parts of the West Indies, South America, Western Africa, 
Australia, etc. It was known to the ancients, being extensively used 
by the Greeks and Romans, who considered it an Arabian product 
because it came to them, among spices from India, by way of the Red 
Sea. It was an article of common import from the East to Europe 
from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries A. D., and probably for 
a long period preceding that time. Ginger was taxed as a spice, in 
common with pepper, cloves, galangal, cubebs, etc. It was frequently 
named in the Anglo-Saxon domestic works on medicine of the eleventh 
century, and was used by the Welsh physicians (507) of the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries, being then next to pepper in common use. 
Marco Polo (518) observed it in China and India about 1280-90. In 
fact, ginger has been a spice and a domestic remedy from the earliest 
records, being extensively employed both as a spice and as an aro- 
matic stomachic. It is still a popular domestic remedy as well as 
a favorite with many physicians. 
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