The use of ginger in cultural and traditional settings may differ from concepts accepted by current Western medicine. When considering the use of herbal supplements, consultation with a primary health care professional is advisable. Additionally, consultation with a practitioner trained in the uses of herbal/health supplements may be beneficial, and coordination of treatment among all health care providers involved may be advantageous.
Ginger is also known as zingiber.
Ginger is a commonly used flavoring agent and food product. Ginger is also available as an herbal supplement. The information contained in this leaflet refers to the use of ginger as an herbal supplement. When used as a food product, the benefits and potential side effects of ginger may be less pronounced than when it is used as an herbal supplement.
Ginger has been used in the treatment and prevention of motion sickness, to increase appetite, and to reduce stomach acidity. Ginger has also been used under medical supervision by some women to reduce severe nausea in pregnancy.
Ginger has not been evaluated by the FDA for safety, effectiveness, or purity. All potential risks and/or advantages of ginger may not be known. Additionally, there are no regulated manufacturing standards in place for these compounds. There have been instances where herbal/health supplements have been sold which were contaminated with toxic metals or other drugs. Herbal/health supplements should be purchased from a reliable source to minimize the risk of contamination.
Ginger may also have uses other than those listed in this product guide.
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a rhizomatousherbaceousperennial plant of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae which is native to tropicalSouth Asia. It needs temperatures between 20°C and 30°C, and a considerable amount of annual rainfall to thrive. Plants are gathered annually for their rhizomes, and re-seeded from some of those rhizomes in the following season.
It is often misspelled (or pronounced) as 'tumeric'. It is also known as kunyit (Indonesian and Malay), Besar (Nepali) or haldi or pasupu in some Asian countries. In Assamese it is called Halodhi. In medieval Europe, turmeric became known as Indian Saffron, since it is widely used as an alternative to far more expensive saffron spice.
Sangli, a town in the southern part of the Indian state of Maharashtra, is the largest and most important trading centre for turmeric in Asia or perhaps in the entire world.
Not surprisingly, there are many different varieties of traditional medicine in Indonesia, all associated to a greater or lesser degree with the diff erent ethnic groups and the historical processes that have shaped this archipelagic nation. -more details;Among the various patterns are mixtures of older elements (from hunter-gatherer stages) and knowledge gained during the diff erent historical periods.They display not only the influence of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam,but also that of the colonial era and the period after independence.
The oldest and most widespread system, and one of which is best understood, is the jamu system of herbal medicine. It originated in Java, and probably dates back to the construction of the world-famous Borobudur in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. In the course of time, jamu spread not only to the whole island of Java and to neighboring Bali, but also to many of the other islands. This dissemination was greatly furthered by the policy of resettlement, which dates back to the period of Dutch colonial rule. Under this policy, which was known as ‘colonization’, 200,000 people were moved away from rural Java during the period 1905-1940. After independence in 1945 the scheme was continued, as part of the Indonesian government’s Transmigration Program. Between 1950 and 1994, upwards of 7 million people left Java and Bali as participants of transmigration, some 7% of them with government support (Department of Information, 1996).
Today, jamu plays a decisive role in the national development; it is an important component of national health care and plays a major role in the economy of the rural areas. As a result of the continuous exchange of information between various cultural groups, traditional systems of medicine are not static but dynamic, regularly incorporating new knowledge and uses. While all the various systems are based on more or less the same plant material, users are limited by what is available in their own locality and the existing knowledge with regard to their use. This has resulted in an interesting series of often complex patterns of use.
We will now take a look at few examples, which illustrate the complex utilization patterns of medicinal plants in Indonesia. As a rule, people use specifi c plant species to cure specifi c diseases. In Kampung Gumpang, Aceh (North Sumatra), the Acehnese use pudding hitam (Graptophyllum sp.) to cure eye diseases (sakit mata); besibesi (Justicia gendarussa Burm.f., syn. Gendarussa vulgaris Nees.) for stomachache; and rutih or geceh,devil’s tree, dita bark tree (Alstonia scholaris (L.) R.Br.) for malaria.However, a particular plant species may also be utilized to cure diff erent diseases within diff erent ethnic communities in diff erent regions of the country. This is true, for example, of alang-alang, lalang, cotton grass (Imperata cylindrica (L.) Beauv.), one of the most widespread grassspecies in Indonesia, which is found as high as 3,000m above sea level. Alang-alang grows wild in dry forest, open fields and dry land. The roots of this species are used to cure high blood pressure, fever, cough, and hepatitis. Another example is temu lawak (Curcuma xanthorrhiza Roxb.), used for a wide variety of different diseases. A third possibility is that diff erent ethnic groups in different geographic areas use different plant species for the same disease. For malaria, people in Aceh use rutih or geceh, while in Bengkulu they usemedang (Beilschmiedia madangBlume), and in East Timor idara laut(Strychnos lucida R.Br.).
This pattern reflects the geographic variability within the same area (Aceh and Bengkulu are both in Sumatra) and on diff erent islands within Indonesia (Sumatra/Timor). And fi nally, people also make use of plant mixtures. For instance, people from Seberida, Province Riau (Sumatra) treat large wounds with a mixture of the bark of loban, wild pepper (Vitex trifolia L.), dukuh, langsat (Lansium domesticum Correa) and rambutan, rambutan (Nephelium lappaceumL.). It will be clear that the greater the geographic distance, the more pronounced the differences will be between the systems of traditional medicines used by the respective communities. However, in some cases different ethnic communities living close to each other maintain distinct traditions and diff erent healing systems.
The most obvious example is the case of ‘modern’ Indonesian ethnic groups such as the Sundanese or Javanese living next to ‘older’ ethnic groups such as the Kubu and Talang Mamak tribes of Sumatra, the Penan of Kalimantan, the Asmat of Irian Jaya, and the Baduy of West Java. But even ethnic groups like the Sundanese of West Java and the Javanese of Central Java use diff erent methods of healing and disease prevention. For liver infections, for instance, the Sundanese eat Curcuma d o m e s t i c a , turmeric, as lalab (salad, fresh vegetable), while the Javanese use boiled dried turmeric to treat the same ailment.
Jamu, Madame, Sir!” .That’s how a slim, young woman carrying a heavy basketful of bottles tied up on her back greets her clients from door to door at a Jakarta neighborhood every morning. The lady, wearing the Javanese traditional dress called kebaya and batik sarong, is selling the traditional Indonesian herbal medicine known as jamu. Indonesia has the world’s largest biodiversity with around 140 million hectares of rainforest. Therefore, nature is deeply rooted in the life of the people culturally, socially and economically. Traditional herbalmedicine derived from leaves, fruits, roots, seeds, flowers or tree barks, has been widely used since ancient times.
Thousands of jamu ladies roam Indonesia’s narrow streets and kampongs (hamlets), off ering a glass of freshly prepared herbal medicine, which is usually mixed with raw egg and honey. In addition to the ‘mobile’ jamu ladies, there are also many jamu stalls almost everywhere. In addition to homemade fresh jamu, the jamu vendors also offer herbal medicine produced by jamu manufacturers. At present, one could easily buy ready-made jamu packed in powder form, as pills, capsules, tonics, oil and ointments. Jamu is used to treat a wide variety of ailments ranging from fatigue and headache to malaria. It also supplies the body with vitamin C, cleanses the blood, keeps the body in good shape,and makes the skin smooth.
Jamu consumers come from every class of society, from the poor to the rich, those who live in villages or those who live in the big cities. Indonesians like to consume jamu due to its availability and comparatively cheap price. Jamu is usually consumed in liquid form and in some cases is applied externally such as on the skin or forehead. The traditional methods of making jamu such as by boiling the prepared herbal ingredients still prevail in the country. The popular traditional tools of making jamu by using a clay pot and grater are still available in many families.As part of the national family welfare program, each neighborhood has been encouraged to have a medicinal plants garden to supply residents who need to treat their family members. The garden is also aimed at preserving the medicinal plants.
The traditional knowledge of Jamu making is also passed to the younger generations. Among common herbs used in jamu prescriptions are ginger(Zingiber offi cinale), wild ginger(Curcuma cautkeridza), turmeric(Curcuma domestica), greater galingale (Kaempferia galanga), kumis kucing (Orthosiphon aristatus), bengle (Zingiber bevifalium), secang(Caesalpinia sappan hinn), brotowali(Tiospora rumpii boerl), calamondin(Citrae aurantifalia sivingle),cinnamon (Gijeyzahyza glabra), and
alang-alang (Gramineae).Traditional medicine may be seen as a product of the twofold wealthof Indonesia: its biodiversity andits cultural diversity. With a view to maintaining this diversity and ensuring the long-term future of
the country’s health care system, Indonesia needs to devise a program for the sustainable use of medicinal plants. The authors have identified seven urgent needs. Indonesia is an archipelagocomprising some 17,000 islands.
Although it covers only 1.3% of the earth’s surface, it contains almost 15% of all higher plants, as well as a significant share of the world’s animal diversity. Indonesia is one of the world’s top two mega-centers of biodiversity (alongside Brazil). It is also a country of enormous cultural diversity.
Among its 210 million inhabitants, there are no fewer than 336 diff erent cultures, speaking over 250 languages. The fact that the country is an archipelago has serious implications to the country’s politics, economy and infrastructure. Indonesian governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) foster the use of the rich natural resources that are to be found all over the country, in an eff ort to make it less dependent on imports. For purposes of this article we will focus on the Indonesian flora, specifically those plants which have therapeutic properties.
The Indonesian Country Study on Biodiversity (ICSBD, 1993) puts the number of species of flowering plants in Indonesia at between 25,000 and 30,000. Some 10% of the total fl ora of Indonesia is thought to have medicinal value. Some 40 million Indonesians depend directly on biodiversity, and Indonesian communities make use of around 6,000 plant species, 1,000 animal species and 100 microbe species on the day to day basis (State Ministry for Environment1997; Government of the Republic of Indonesia 1997). Many plants which are useful for medicinal purposes have been imported, together with details of their use. In some cases this has led to the development of new uses, while formerly unknown species are regularly integrated into traditional Indonesian medical systems.
han when it is used as an herbal supplement.
