Ginger

Statema, B. C. P.

Plant

Ginger

Zingiber

Known today as: The rhizome of Zingiber officinale.
Kind: Plant, in 3 older authorities
Constituents: 6-gingerol, 6-shogaol, zingiberene
Earliest authority here: Dioscorides (c. AD 40–90)
Qualities: Hot in the third degree (Galenic tradition). What the degrees mean
In other databases: Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search

Revised October 1, 2026: Tradition, lore, modern assessment, and sources extended. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.

Ginger: what was it used for?

Heating the stomach, helping digestion, and correcting cold purges; candied as “green ginger” for the voyage.

Ginger: how is it taken as a tea?

Ginger tea, a hot infusion, for the stoppage of the menses from cold.

All the herbal teas of the database. Historical directions, not medical advice.

Ginger: what does modern science say?

Among the few old remedies with good evidence: it eases nausea, including morning sickness. It was domesticated in island South-East Asia and carried across the Pacific by Austronesian voyagers before it reached India. Its gingerols act on the stomach and the nerves that signal nausea: trials support it for the sickness of pregnancy and after surgery, though not for the nausea of chemotherapy.

Pharmacognosy & Toxicology

Constituents

Mechanism

Gingerols act at the serotonin 5-HT3 receptors of the gut and the vomiting centre.

Checked against ChEMBL

6-gingerol: No measurement in ChEMBL for “act at the serotonin 5-HT3 receptors” (95 activities recorded, none against the target named); the line rests on its references.

Toxic dose

No toxicity at culinary doses; a gram a day in the trials.

Standing

Approved in Europe as a traditional remedy for motion sickness; supported by trials for the nausea of pregnancy.

Viljoen, E., et al. (2014). Nutrition Journal 13. Book, not indexed

The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.

Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.

Ginger: what lore surrounds it?

Gingerbread, first a spiced honey cake, was shaped into men at the court of Elizabeth I by one tradition, and sold at every fair; the Spanish planted ginger in Jamaica early in the sixteenth century, the first Asian spice grown in the New World.

Used in These Compounds

Ginger is an ingredient of 1 compound medicine in the database. For Club members. Create a free account or sign in.

Ginger: what did the older authorities say?

Dioscorides: Describes zingiberi as a root brought from Arabia, warming and good for the stomach.
Pliny: Records that ginger was thought in his day to be the root of the pepper plant, and that a pound sold for six denarii.
The Middle Ages: Ginger was the commonest of the costly spices, second to pepper; in fourteenth-century England a pound cost as much as a sheep, and it stood in every recipe for the cold stomach.

Sources

Dioscorides, De materia medica. Read in part · the text read
Grieve, M. A Modern Herbal, “Ginger.” As published on botanical.com.
Pliny, Natural History XII. Primary text
Viljoen, E., et al. (2014). “A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effect of ginger on nausea and vomiting in pregnancy.” Nutrition Journal 13. Verified against its record · doi:10.1186/1475-2891-13-20

Verification

Checked

October 1, 2026

Passes

Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity

Sources

5 cited: 1 read in part, 1 verified against its record, 1 primary text, 1 book, not indexed, 1 not yet checked. 2 with the abstract on file.

Corrections

None were needed.

What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.

Cite This Entry

Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026

Chicago: “Ginger.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/ginger.
MLA: “Ginger.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/ginger. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
APA: Ginger. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/ginger

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