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.
FRUCTUS CARDAMOMI.
Semina Cardamomi minoris; Cardamoms, Malabar Cardamoms; F. Cardamomes; G. Cardamomen.
Botanical Origin—Elettaria[2384] Cardamomum Maton (Alpinia Cardamomum Roxb.), a flag-like perennial plant, 6 to 12 feet high, with large lanceolate leaves on long sheathing stalks, and flowers in lax flexuose horizontal scapes, 6 to 18 inches in length, which are thrown out to the number of 3 or 4, close to the ground. The fruit is ovoid, three-sided, plump and smooth, with a fleshy green pericarp.
The Cardamom plant grows abundantly, both wild and under cultivation, in the moist shady mountain forests of North Canara, Coorg and Wynaad on the Malabar Coast; at an elevation of 2500 to 5000 feet above the sea. It is truly wild in Canara and in the Anamalai, Cochin and Travancore forests.[2385] The cardamom region has a mean temperature of 22° C. (72° F.), and a mean rainfall of 121 inches.
A well-marked variety, differing chiefly in the elongated form and large size of its fruits, is found wild in the forests of the central and southern provinces of Ceylon. It was formerly regarded as a distinct species under the name of Elettaria major, but careful observation of growing specimens has shown that it possesses no characters to warrant it being considered more than a variety of the typical plant, and it is therefore now called E. Cardamomum var. β. It is only known to occur in Ceylon, where the ordinary cardamom of Malabar is not found except as a cultivated plant.[2386]
History—Cardamoms, Elā, are mentioned in the writings of Susruta, and hence may have been used in India from a remote period. It is not unlikely that in common with ginger and pepper they reached Europe in classical times, although it is not possible from the descriptions that have come down to determine exactly what was the Καρδάμωμον of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, or the Ἄμωμον of the last named writer. The Amomum, Amomis and Cardamomum of Pliny are also doubtful, the description he gives of the last being unintelligible as applied to anything now known by that name.
In the list of Indian spices liable to duty at Alexandria, circa a.d. 176-180 (see Appendix, A), Amomum as well as Cardamomum is mentioned. St. Jerome names Amomum together with musk, as perfumes in use among the voluptuous ecclesiastics of the 4th century.[2387]
Cardamoms are named by Edrisi[2388] about a.d. 1154 as a production of Ceylon, and also as an article of trade from China to Aden; and in the same century they are mentioned together with cinnamon and cloves ([p. 282]) as an import in Palestine by way of Acre, then a trading city of the Levant.[2389]