Ginseng: A Concise Handbook

A review of the literature on the root widely used medicinally in oriental and American cultures, also drawing on the author's long experience with cultivating the plant. Examines the history, taxonomy, chemistry, pharmacology, and the economics of cultivation. Presents many of the claims and warnings of its medicinal effects. Extensive bibliography. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

James A. Duke, author of Ginseng: A Concise Handbook, is the world's foremost expert on the subject, having studied the cultivation of ginseng and its uses in North America, China, and Korea.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1929, he graduated from the University of North Carolina, and undertook post-doctoral work at Washington University and the Missouri Botanical Garden. He is currently with the Germplasm Services Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland.
His other books include Medicinal Plants of the Bible, A Culinary Herbal, and (with E.S. Ayensu as co-author), Medicinal Plants of China.
In this book James Duke reaffirms his belief that herbs hold the answer to all our medical problems. "In this regard,'he writes, "perhaps I reflect the Cherokee tear that flows in colloidal suspension in my Caucasian blood veins."
He has written and recorded a Blue Grass song about ginseng, and has personally cultivated the "Lord of the Herbs" for a number of years.