Ginseng

Radix Ginseng (the root) is Ren Shen in Chinese Traditional Medicine (TCM).

Dan Bensky and Andrew Gamble in “Materia Medica” in an extensive listing, say it is,

“sweet, slightly bitter, slightly warm” and is one of the “herbs that tonify the Qi”.  It is contraindicated “in cases of yin deficiency with heat signs, heat excess, or in the absence of significant qi deficiency … also contraindicated for hypertensive patients with ascendant liver yang and in cases of very high blood pressure.”

Siberian ginseng is classified as an “Adaptogen and Tonic”(Menzies-Trull in "The Herbalist's Prescriber").

“Anti-depressive, increases resistance and improves both physical and mental performance… it will raise lowered blood pressure to a normal level… it can be used in general for exhaustion states and weakness.” (David Hoffman in “The New Holistic Herbal”).

Unani Tibb: For, amongst other things, “digestion, stimulate malfunctioning endocrine glands and is a powerful antispasmodic in diseases such as asthma” (Robert Thomson, in “The Grosset Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine” (1980).