Abstract
Gin-nan is the Japanese word for the seed of Ginkgo biloba L. The albumen of the seed is used as a crude drug and food in China and Japan. In particular, it is used as an antitussive and expectorant in traditional medicine. However, when this substance has been taken to excess during food shortages, “Gin-nan food poisoning” has sometimes occurred in Japan [1–35] and China [36–37]. Figure 1 shows the numbers of patients with gin-nan food poisoning in Japan in our survey [1–38]. The symptoms of this poisoning are mainly convulsions and loss of consciousness. Infants and particularly children under 6 years of age made up about 74% of all patients (Fig. 2). The consequences are not serious for survivors, but mortality is about 27% in Japan.
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Wada, K., Haga, M. (1997). Food Poisoning by Ginkgo biloba Seeds. In: Hori, T., Ridge, R.W., Tulecke, W., Del Tredici, P., Trémouillaux-Guiller, J., Tobe, H. (eds) Ginkgo Biloba A Global Treasure. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-68416-9_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-68416-9_24
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