584 GINGER 



not to be used for blistering ointments, or for setons, nor 

 introduced into the rectum of horses exposed for sale a 

 barbarous practice, apt to induce serious intestinal irri- 

 tation. 



DOSES, etc. Of black pepper, as a stomachic, horses take 

 about 3i- ; cattle, 3ij- 1 sheep and swine, grs. x. to grs. xxx. ; 

 dogs, grs. v. to grs. x., repeated two or three times a day, 

 given in bolus, suspended in water or spirit, or in well- 

 boiled gruel. The tincture of capsicum is made with 

 one of capsicum and twenty of alcohol (70 per cent.). 



GINGER 



ZINGIBER. The scraped and dried rhizome of Zingiber 

 officinale (B.P.). Nat. Ord. Zingiberacese. 



The Zingiber officinale, grown in many tropical countries, 

 has a biennial, creeping, fleshy, and nodulous rhizome, which 

 gives off numerous descending short radicles, with several 

 ascending annual leafy stems, reaching three or four feet in 

 height, invested with alternate elliptical leaves, and termi- 

 nated by spikes and racemes of purple flowers. For making 

 green or preserved ginger, the rhizomes are gathered while 

 still soft and juicy, and when about three months old. For 

 other purposes they are taken up when about a year old, 

 when the aerial stems have withered, but while the rhizome 

 is still plump and soft. They are scalded to check vege- 

 tation, usually scraped to remove the brown wrinkled 

 epidermis, and dried in the sun. 



PROPERTIES. Several sorts are recognised. The Jamaica, 

 in plump, flat, pale pieces or races, the bark stripped of 

 epidermis, producing a light-coloured powder of superior 

 quality ; Malabar or Cochin China, a little darker, but 

 usually good ; Bengal and African, imported both coated 

 and uncoated, and generally cheap and excellent ; Barbados, 

 in short thick races, retaining its brown corrugated epider- 

 mis. The unstripped descriptions are sometimes termed 

 black gingers. The several varieties are in flat, irregular- 

 lobed, knotted, zigzag pieces, two to four inches in length, 

 externally pale yellow, striated, and fibrous, breaking with a 



