Ginseng, 'the great panacea for all ills'

Farmers beam, picking ginseng flowers in a breeding field, published in The Korea Times Sept. 11, 1994. Korea Times Archive

In the early 1900s, Charles M. Root, an aptly named American, wrote, “When China thinks about [Korea] it is not about its political status, its queer customs or its [strategic] importance to China, but the ginseng that comes from [Korean] mountains.” He added, “This root is the foundation of all the commercial dealings between China and ‘The Land of the Morning [Calm].’”

Harvesting wild ginseng was a task filled with danger. The mountainous regions of Korea were teeming with wolves, wild boars, leopards and tigers. According to Seonmin Kim (author of “Ginseng and Borderland”), wild ginseng was not supposed to be seen by humans and was guarded by tigers — according to some folktales, the root could even transform itself into a tiger.

The stages of ginseng from a catalog published in 1905 / Charles Marvin Root, “What is Ginseng?” 1905

Ginseng was surrounded by the supernatural and was often a popular subject of ridicule and derision. Root wrote:

“The [Koreans] say, that only persons of blameless life and purity of heart can so much as see where the ginseng shoots upward its few stalks covered with pale leaves. There is a common tradition that when it is taken from the earth it utters a low musical cry like the wail of a lost spirit, and it must be quickly wrapped up or its virtue and strength will depart to return no more.”

In the 1890s, a journal published in England claimed: “The virtue of the plant does not lie in its material composition, but in a mysterious power appertaining to it through being produced wholly apart from human influence, under the care of a beneficent spirit.”

Ginseng was the Korean cure-it-all for most problems, including impotency. In his medical report of 1885, Horace N. Allen, the first American doctor to reside in Korea, described it as “the great panacea for all ills.” Allen was extremely derisive towards American ginseng (which he described as being “inert”), but was forced to concede Korean ginseng had powers. “I have tried in on natives and foreigners, and found it to be ‘heating,’ like iron, and to have active aphrodisiac properties.”

Ginseng the man plant / Scientific American, January 1891

A little over a decade later, Allen recalled one of his first experiences with Korean ginseng:

“I have seen [Korean ginseng] produce suppuration in otherwise healthy wounds when surreptitiously given to hasten the slow process of healing. When the cause was discovered and removed the wounds gradually came into proper condition again.”

An elderly man harvests ginseng, published in The Korea Times March 25, 1994.

Although he didn’t identify the patient, we know from other sources that it was Prince Min Yong-ik. According to Allen’s biographer: “[Once] in Allen’s absence, [the prince] tried a native remedy. Only once, and the queen, his aunt, apologized for that…”

Ginseng was not the only Korean remedy that infuriated Allen — but that has been discussed in a previous article.

Prince Min was not Allen’s only patient to try ginseng out of desperation. Edward H. Parker, the British consul at Jemulpo (modern Incheon) in the mid-1880s, wrote:

“When I was in [Korea], I suffered agonies from sciatica, and conceived the idea that ginseng might ‘repair’ my nerves. I consulted an American official [Allen] there, who told me that he had once tried it, but that it made him ‘perspire blood.’ I made myself some ginseng tea, besides chewing bits of the root very cautiously. The only effect was to make me feel very hilarious and full of nervous force; but it did not cure the sciatica, and I was afraid of increasing the dose in view of what the United States official had said.”

A vaguely humanlike image of a ginseng root appears in The Korea Times Sept. 7, 1978. Korea Times Archive

There were dangers associated with this powerful cure-it-all. In the early 1890s, the American Department of Agriculture reported:

“In Korea the cultivated ginseng is smaller than the wild or ‘sansam’ — literally ‘mountain’ ginseng — the root of which attains a length of a foot or more and a diameter of an inch and upward. It is said that when this wild root is administered (always at a single dose), the patient loses consciousness for a greater or less time, and for about a month is tortured by boils, eruptions, sleeplessness, and other ills. Rejuvenation then begins, the skin becomes clear, the body healthy, and the person will live, such is the belief, exempt from disease for many years.”

The earlier-mentioned English journal described similar results but noted the loss of consciousness was for three days and the immunity from sickness was for a period of 90 to 100 years during which time the imbiber would suffer neither from heat nor cold.

While the Americans and English may have laughed at the purported strengths of the plant, perhaps dismissing the tales as superstitious mumbo jumbo, ginseng was prized by many of their own countrymen for its natural and supernatural powers — at least in the past.

Very curious configurations, published in The Korea Times July 19, 1986. Korea Times Archive

Daniel Boone, an early American folk hero, used to hunt and sell ginseng. Ginseng was used stimulate the appetites in elderly people and weak children. It could also fortify the strength of women. Of course, it was also good for men. A couple of cups of ginseng tea could help “to tone up the male reproductive organs.” It could also be made into an ointment that could be applied externally to restore male virility.

Even scientific journals weighed in on the purported medical uses of ginseng. According to Scientific American (January 1891):

“The ginseng formerly had some reputation in Europe, but the doctors both there and in America have decided that there is so little real medicinal worth in the root that it has been discarded, like so many other herbal remedies of former days….The [Asians] look upon our distrust of it as another proof of the want of common sense in the ‘foreign devils,’ while they regard with still more contempt many a drug in vogue with our practitioners.”

While many Americans may have denounced ginseng as having no “real medicinal worth,” no one was discarding it — instead, they were selling it. As we shall see, American ginseng soon began to dominate the Asian market.

My appreciation to Diane Nars for her invaluable assistance.

Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books, including Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters.