Ginger
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Ginger. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
jin'jer, a well known spice or flavoring. The common ginger plant is found in both the East and the West Indies . Thick, fleshy, root-stocks, the size of a man's finger, send up leafy, reed-like stems to a height of two or three feet; also leafless flowering stalks which bear conical spikes of white, purple-lipped flowers. The ginger of commerce is obtained from the root-stocks, either by drying the root whole, or by scraping and washing. The former plan yields what is known as black ginger; the latter, white ginger. The best article is known as Jamaica ginger, sold usually in the form of fluid extract. It comes from the island of that name. It is difficult to procure pure ground ginger. Ginger beer is made from ginger, sugar and lemons, cream of tartar , etc. Gingerbread is a familiar sweet bread. Oil of ginger is used as a remedy to allay pain. Preserved ginger is a popular confection. It is imported from China in fancy jars. To prepare it the young root-stocks are boiled in sirup. American wholesalers import over 400,000 pounds of ginger annually. See Spice Ginger. Flower stem. Blossom. Calyx
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in botany, Zingiber officinale, common or narrow-leaved ginger. It is a native of India, but is cultivated in most tropical countries. There is a broadleaved ginger, Z. zerumbet, also a native of India. It is used externally for cataplasms and fomentations, but is not eaten. In ordinary language, the dry, wrinkled rhizomes of the ginger-plant. The pieces, or as they are called races, are usually from 2 to 4 inches long, branched, flat, and of a pale buff color. The chief varieties imported into the United States are Jamaica , Cochin, Bengal, Japan, and African. The first three are scraped gingers, and of these Jamaica is the most esteemed owing to its color and flavor. Ginger is an agreeable aromatic and a valuable stomachic; but is more largely used as a condiment than as a medicine. Preserved ginger, so largely imported from China in jars, consists of the young rhizomes boiled in syrup.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Botanically the two accounts still hold: ginger is the rhizome of Zingiber officinale, dried whole as "black" ginger or scraped for "white," and preserved ginger is still young rhizome boiled in syrup. What has shifted is geography and reputation. The Jamaica ginger that Collier's called "the most esteemed" is now a minor crop, with India, China, Nigeria and Indonesia supplying most of the world's several million tonnes a year; and the fluid extract of Jamaica ginger that Aiton's recommended in 1910 became infamous in 1930, when bootleg "jake" adulterated with a tri-ortho-cresyl phosphate plasticiser paralysed the legs of tens of thousands of American drinkers during Prohibition. Aiton's complaint that "it is difficult to procure pure ground ginger" was answered by food-adulteration law rather than by botany, and the "valuable stomachic" of 1921 has since been tested in clinical trials for nausea in pregnancy, seasickness and chemotherapy, with modest but real support.
Written for this edition, 2026.