There are few plants in the world that possess the rich history and lore of the ginsengs. Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng) has likely been used as medicine since the dawn of civilization in Asia; its first written mention came in the first century B.C. and the earliest mention of ginseng in formal Chinese medical literature was in The Divine Husbandman’s Classic of the Materia Medica, written in the first century A.D.