122 SCIENTIFIC AND APPLIED PHARMACOGNOSY 



Jamaica ginger is ginger grown in Jamaica. It contains not less 

 than 15 per cent of cold water extract, and conforms in other respects 

 to the standards for ginger. 



Limed ginger, bleached ginger, is whole ginger coated with car- 

 bonate of calcium. It contains not more than 4 per cent of car- 

 bonate of calcium, nor more than 10 per cent of total ash, and con- 

 forms in other respects to the standards for ginger. (U. S. Dept. 

 Agric.) 



Adulterants. Exhausted ginger is sometimes used to adulterate 

 powdered ginger. If the exhaustion has been by means of water the 

 starch grains are somewhat altered. If the extraction has been made 

 with alcohol the light yellowish oleo-resin cells are not so abundant. 

 Ginger, particularly the decorticated varieties, loses, on keeping, part 

 of the pale yellowish oil, being replaced by a reddish, almost insoluble 

 resin. Ginger is also sometimes adulterated with wheat middlings 

 and flaxseed meal. Curcuma is sometimes added to an exhausted 

 or adulterated ginger to bring up the color to that of the normal drug. 



Ginger which is bleached by means of sulphur fumes or bleaching 

 powder (chlorinated lime) or that is coated with lime should not be 

 used. 



Literature. Kraemer, Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1908, p. 303; Kilmer, 

 Ibid., 1898, p. 75; Snyder, Amer. Jour. Pharm., 1918, 90, p. 253. 



CURCUMA. Rhizoma Curcumae, Turmeric or Yellow Root. 

 The prepared rhizome of Curcuma longa (Fam. Zingiberacese) . 

 The plant is cultivated in all tropical countries by methods similar to 

 those used in the cultivation of ginger. The rhizomes are collected 

 at the end of the growing season, cleaned, boiled for some hours and 

 then carefully, but rapidly, dried in the open air. Two commercial 

 forms are recognized and both may be obtained from the same plant: 

 the one known as " round .curcuma," being obtained from the swollen 

 internodes which arise from the hypogeous leaf -buds; the other, 

 furnishing the " long curcuma," being obtained from the less fleshy 

 underground branches. 



Description. Cylindrical or fusiform (Curcuma longa or long 

 curcuma) or ovoid and somewhat flattened (curcuma rotunda or 

 round curcuma); from 2 to 5 cm. in length and from 1 to 2 cm. in 

 thickness; outer surface light or dark yellowish- brown, smooth and 

 irregular, marked by root-scars and occasionally by somewhat spiral 

 leaf-scars; heavy and of an almost horny fracture; inner surface 

 orange-yellow with a waxy luster, distinct endodermis and numerous 

 vascular bundles seen either in transverse or longitudinal view; odor 

 aromatic; taste pungent and somewhat bitter. 



