ABSTRACT
Investigating Manchurian ginseng roots in a similar manner in 1889, the Russian chemist Davydow also recovered a glycoside resembling panaquilon. Early in the 20th century Japanese scientists commenced the investigation of Japanese and Korean ginsengs. Inoue in 1902 isolated a saponin glycoside from Japanese ginseng (chikusetsu ninjin) and three years later Fujitani published an account of the recovery of a relatively pure, white, crystalline compound also called panaquilon from extracts of Japanese and Korean ginseng roots. Further progress was achieved in 1906 when Asahini and Taguchi described a noncrystalline compound obtained from an alcoholic root extract; this compound was found to be a saponin hydrolysing into an aglycone or sapogenin and a glycone identified as glucose (Hou, 1978).
