_Radix Galangæ[2376] minoris_; _Galangal_; F. _Racine de Galanga_; G.
_Galgant_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Alpinia officinarum_ Hance,[2377] a flag-like
plant, with stems about 4 feet high, clothed with narrow lanceolate
leaves, and terminating in short and simple racemes of elegant white
flowers, shaded and veined with dull red. It grows cultivated in the
island of Hainan in the south of China, and, as is supposed, in some of
the southern provinces of the Chinese Empire.
[2376] _Galanga_ appears to be derived from the Arabic name
_Khulanjan_, which in turn comes from the Chinese _Kau-liang Kiang_,
signifying, as Dr. F. Porter Smith has informed us, _Kau-liang ginger_.
Kau-liang is the ancient name of a district in the province of
Kwangtung.
[2377] _Journ. of Linnean Society_, Botany, xiii. (1871) 1; also
Trimen’s _Journ. of Bot._, ii. (1873) 175; Bentley and Trimen’s _Med.
Plants_, part 31 (1878).—Dr. Thwaites of Ceylon, who has the plant in
cultivation, has been good enough to send us a fine coloured drawing of
it in flower.
=History=—The earliest reference to galangal we have met with occurs
in the writings of the Arabian geographer Ibn Khurdádbah[2378] about
A.D. 869-885, who in enumerating the productions of a country called
Sila, names galangal together with musk, aloes, camphor, silk, and
cassia. Edrisi,[2379] three hundred years later, is more explicit,
for he mentions it with many other productions of the far East, as
brought from India and China to Aden, then a great emporium of the
trade of Asia with Egypt and Europe. The physician Alkindi,[2380] who
lived at Bassora and Bagdad in the second half of the 9th century,
and somewhat later Rhazes and Avicenna, notice galangal, the use of
which was introduced into Europe[2381] through the medical system
promulgated by them and other writers of the same school. As to Great
Britain, galingal, as it was frequently spelt, also occurs in the Welsh
“Meddygon Myddfai” (see Appendix).
Many notices exist showing that galangal was imported with pepper,
ginger, cloves, nutmegs, cardamoms and zedoary; and that during the
middle ages it was used in common with these substances as a culinary
spice, which it is still held to be in certain parts of Europe.[2382]
The plant affording the drug was unknown until the year 1870, when a
description of it was communicated to the Linnean Society of London by
Dr. H. F. Hance, from specimens collected by Mr. E. C. Taintor, near
Hoihow in the north of Hainan.
[2378] Work quoted in the Appendix—tome v. 294.
[2379] _Géographie_, i. (1836) 51.
[2380] _De Rerum gradibus_, Argentorati, 1531. 162.
[2381] Macer Floridus (see p. 627), cap. 70, was already acquainted
with it.
[2382] Hanbury, _Historical Notes on the Radix Galangæ of
pharmacy—Journ. of Linnean Society_, Bot. xiii. (1871) 20; _Pharm.
Journ._ Sept. 23, 1871. 248; _Science Papers_, 370.
=Description=—The drug consists of a cylindrical rhizome, having
a maximum diameter of about ¾ of an inch, but for the most part
considerably smaller. This rhizome has been cut while fresh into short
pieces, 1½ to 3 inches in length, which are often branched, and are
marked transversely at short intervals by narrow raised sinuous rings,
indicating the former attachment of leaves or scales. The pieces
are hard, tough and shrivelled, externally of a dark reddish-brown,
displaying when cut transversely an internal substance of rather paler
hue (but never white), with a darker central column. The drug exhales
when comminuted an agreeable aroma, and has a strongly pungent, spicy
taste.
=Microscopic Structure=—The central portion of the rhizome is separated
from the outer tissue by the nucleus-sheath, which appears as a
well-defined darker line. Yet the central tissue does not differ much
from that surrounding it, both being composed of uniform parenchyme
cells, traversed by scattered vascular bundles. There also occur
throughout the whole tissue isolated cells loaded with essential oil or
resin. But the larger number of cells abound in large starch granules
of an unusual club-shaped form. Some cells contain a brown substance,
differing from resin in being insoluble in alcohol. The corky layer is
remarkable from its cells having undulated walls.
=Chemical Composition=—The odour of galangal is due to an essential
oil, which the rhizoma yields to the extent of only 0·7 per cent., and
which we found to be very slightly deviating the plane of polarization
to the left.
Brandes[2383] extracted from Galangal, by means of ether, an inodorous,
tasteless, crystalline body called _Kämpferid_, which is worthy of
further examination.
The pungent principle of the drug, which is probably analogous to that
of ginger, has not been studied.
=Commerce=—Galangal is shipped from Canton to other ports of China, to
India and Europe, but there are no general statistics to give an idea
of the total production. From official returns quoted by Hance, the
export of the year 1869, which seems to have been exceptionally large,
amounted to 370,800 lb. From Kiung-chow, island of Hainan, 2,113 peculs
(281,733 lb.) were exported in 1877.
=Uses=—The drug is an aromatic stimulant of the nature of ginger, now
nearly obsolete in British medicine. It is still a popular remedy and
spice in Livonia, Esthonia and central Russia, and by the Tartars is
taken with tea. It is also in some requisition in Russia among brewers,
and the manufacturers of vinegar and cordials, and finally as a cattle
medicine.
=Substitute=—The rhizoma of _Alpina Galanga_ Willd., a plant of Java,
constitutes the drug known as _Radix Galangæ majoris_ or _Greater
Galangal_, packages of which occasionally appear in the London drug
sales. It may be at once distinguished from the Chinese drug by its
much larger size and the pale buff hue of its internal substance, the
latter in strong contrast with the orange-brown outer skin.