Ginguené edited the Décade philosophique, politique et littéraire till it was suppressed by Napoleon in 1807. He contributed largely to the Biographie universelle, the Mercure de France and the Encyclopédie méthodique; and he edited the works of Chamfort and of Lebrun. Among his minor productions are an opera, Pomponin ou le tuteur mystifié (1777); La Satire des satires (1778); De l’autorité de Rabelais dans la révolution présente (1791); De M. Neckar (1795); Fables nouvelles (1810); Fables inédites (1814). See “Éloge de Ginguené” by Dacier, in the Mémoires de l’institut, tom. vii.; “Discours” by M. Daunou, prefixed to the 2nd ed. of the Hist. litt. d’Italie; D. J. Garat, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de P. L. Ginguené, prefixed to a catalogue of his library (Paris, 1817).
GINKEL, GODART VAN (1630-1703); 1st earl of Athlone, Dutch general in the service of England, was born at Utrecht in 1630. He came of a noble family, and bore the title of Baron van Reede, being the eldest son of Godart Adrian van Reede, Baron Ginkel. In his youth he entered the Dutch army, and in 1688 he followed William, prince of Orange, in his expedition to England. In the following year he distinguished himself by a memorable exploit—the pursuit, defeat and capture of a Scottish regiment which had mutinied at Ipswich, and was marching northward across the fens. It was the alarm excited by this mutiny that facilitated the passing of the first Mutiny Act. In 1690 Ginkel accompanied William III. to Ireland, and commanded a body of Dutch cavalry at the battle of the Boyne. On the king’s return to England General Ginkel was entrusted with the conduct of the war. He took the field in the spring of 1691, and established his headquarters at Mullingar. Among those who held a command under him was the marquis of Ruvigny, the recognized chief of the Huguenot refugees. Early in June Ginkel took the fortress of Ballymore, capturing the whole garrison of 1000 men. The English lost only 8 men. After reconstructing the fortifications of Ballymore the army marched to Athlone, then one of the most important of the fortified towns of Ireland. The Irish defenders of the place were commanded by a distinguished French general, Saint-Ruth. The firing began on June 19th, and on the 30th the town was stormed, the Irish army retreating towards Galway, and taking up their position at Aughrim. Having strengthened the fortifications of Athlone and left a garrison there, Ginkel led the English, on July 12th, to Aughrim. An immediate attack was resolved on, and, after a severe and at one time doubtful contest, the crisis was precipitated by the fall of Saint-Ruth, and the disorganized Irish were defeated and fled. A horrible slaughter of the Irish followed the struggle, and 4000 corpses were left unburied on the field, besides a multitude of others that lay along the line of the retreat. Galway next capitulated, its garrison being permitted to retire to Limerick. There the viceroy Tyrconnel was in command of a large force, but his sudden death early in August left the command in the hands of General Sarsfield and the Frenchman D’Usson. The English came in sight of the town on the day of Tyrconnel’s death, and the bombardment was immediately begun. Ginkel, by a bold device, crossed the Shannon and captured the camp of the Irish cavalry. A few days later he stormed the fort on Thomond Bridge, and after difficult negotiations a capitulation was signed, the terms of which were divided into a civil and a military treaty. Thus was completed the conquest or pacification of Ireland, and the services of the Dutch general were amply recognized and rewarded. He received the formal thanks of the House of Commons, and was created by the king 1st earl of Athlone and baron of Aughrim. The immense forfeited estates of the earl of Limerick were given to him, but the grant was a few years later revoked by the English parliament. The earl continued to serve in the English army, and accompanied the king to the continent in 1693. He fought at the sieges of Namur and the battle of Neerwinden, and assisted in destroying the French magazine at Givet. In 1702, waiving his own claims to the position of commander-in-chief, he commanded the Dutch serving under the duke of Marlborough. He died at Utrecht on the 11th of February 1703, and was succeeded by his son the 2nd earl (1668-1719), a distinguished soldier in the reigns of William III. and Anne. On the death of the 9th earl without issue in 1844, the title became extinct.
GINSBURG, CHRISTIAN DAVID (1831- ), Hebrew scholar, was born at Warsaw on the 25th of December 1831. Coming to England shortly after the completion of his education in the Rabbinic College at Warsaw, Dr Ginsburg continued his study of the Hebrew Scriptures, with special attention to the Megilloth. The first result of these studies was a translation of the Song of Songs, with a commentary historical and critical, published in 1857. A similar translation of Ecclesiastes, followed by treatises on the Karaites, on the Essenes and on the Kabbala, kept the author prominently before biblical students while he was preparing the first sections of his magnum opus, the critical study of the Massorah. Beginning in 1867 with the publication of Jacob ben Chajim’s Introduction to the Rabbinic Bible, Hebrew and English, with notices, and the Massoreth Ha-Massoreth of Elias Levita, in Hebrew, with translation and commentary, Dr Ginsburg took rank as an eminent Hebrew scholar. In 1870 he was appointed one of the first members of the committee for the revision of the English version of the Old Testament. His life-work culminated in the publication of the Massorah, in three volumes folio (1880-1886), followed by the Masoretico-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible (1894), and the elaborate introduction to it (1897). Dr Ginsburg had one predecessor in the field, the learned Jacob ben Chajim, who in 1524-1525 published the second Rabbinic Bible, containing what has ever since been known as the Massorah; but neither were the materials available nor was criticism sufficiently advanced for a complete edition. Dr Ginsburg took up the subject almost where it was left by those early pioneers, and collected portions of the Massorah from the countless MSS. scattered throughout Europe and the East. More recently Dr Ginsburg has published Facsimiles of Manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible (1897 and 1898), and The Text of the Hebrew Bible in Abbreviations (1903), in addition to a critical treatise “on the relationship of the so-called Codex Babylonicus of A.D. 916 to the Eastern Recension of the Hebrew Text” (1899, for private circulation). In the last-mentioned work he seeks to prove that the St Petersburg Codex, for so many years accepted as the genuine text of the Babylonian school, is in reality a Palestinian text carefully altered so as to render it conformable to the Babylonian recension. He subsequently undertook the preparation of a new edition of the Hebrew Bible for the British and Foreign Bible Society. He also contributed many articles to J. Kitto’s Encyclopaedia, W. Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Biography and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
GINSENG, the root of a species of Panax (P. Ginseng), native of Manchuria and Korea, belonging to the natural order Araliaceae, used in China as a medicine. Other roots are substituted for it, notably that of Panax quinquefolium, distinguished as American ginseng, and imported from the United States. At one time the ginseng obtained from Manchuria was considered to be the finest quality, and in consequence became so scarce that an imperial edict was issued prohibiting its collection. That prepared in Korea is now the most esteemed variety. The root of the wild plant is preferred to that of cultivated ginseng, and the older the plant the better is the quality of the root considered to be. Great care is taken in the preparation of the drug. The account given by Kaempfer of the preparation of nindsin, the root of Sium ninsi, in Korea, will give a good idea of the preparation of ginseng, ninsi being a similar drug of supposed weaker virtue, obtained from a different plant, and often confounded with ginseng. “In the beginning of winter nearly all the population of Sjansai turn out to collect the root, and make preparations for sleeping in the fields. The root, when collected, is macerated for three days in fresh water, or water in which rice has been boiled twice; it is then suspended in a closed vessel over the fire, and afterwards dried, until from the base to the middle it assumes a hard, resinous and translucent appearance, which is considered a proof of its good quality.”
Ginseng of good quality generally occurs in hard, rather brittle, translucent pieces, about the size of the little finger, and varying in length from 2 to 4 in. The taste is mucilaginous, sweetish and slightly bitter and aromatic. The root is frequently forked, and it is probably owing to this circumstance that medicinal properties were in the first place attributed to it, its resemblance to the body of a man being supposed to indicate that it could restore virile power to the aged and impotent. In price it varies from 6 or 12 dollars to the enormous sum of 300 or 400 dollars an ounce.
Lockhart gives a graphic description of a visit to a ginseng merchant. Opening the outer box, the merchant removed several paper parcels which appeared to fill the box, but under them was a second box, or perhaps two small boxes, which, when taken out, showed the bottom of the large box and all the intervening space filled with more paper parcels. These parcels, he said, “contained quicklime, for the purpose of absorbing any moisture and keeping the boxes quite dry, the lime being packed in paper for the sake of cleanliness. The smaller box, which held the ginseng, was lined with sheet-lead; the ginseng further enclosed in silk wrappers was kept in little silken-covered boxes. Taking up a piece, he would request his visitor not to breathe upon it, nor handle it; he would dilate upon the many merits of the drug and the cures it had effected. The cover of the root, according to its quality, was silk, either embroidered or plain, cotton cloth or paper.” In China the ginseng is often sent to friends as a valuable present; in such cases, “accompanying the medicine is usually given a small, beautifully-finished double kettle, in which the ginseng is prepared as follows. The inner kettle is made of silver, and between this and the outside vessel, which is a copper jacket, is a small space for holding water. The silver kettle, which fits on a ring near the top of the outer covering, has a cup-like cover in which rice is placed with a little water; the ginseng is put in the inner vessel with water, a cover is placed over the whole, and the apparatus is put on the fire. When the rice in the cover is sufficiently cooked, the medicine is ready, and is then eaten by the patient, who drinks the ginseng tea at the same time.” The dose of the root is from 60 to 90 grains. During the use of the drug tea-drinking is forbidden for at least a month, but no other change is made in the diet. It is taken in the morning before breakfast, from three to eight days together, and sometimes it is taken in the evening before going to bed.
The action of the drug appears to be entirely psychic, and comparable to that of the mandrake of the Hebrews. There is no evidence that it possesses any pharmacological or therapeutic properties.