GARLIC, LEEK, and ONION.
Seeming at first sight out of place among the lilies of the field, yet Garlic, the Leek, and the Onion are true members of that noble order, and may be correctly classified together with the favoured tribe, "Clothed more grandly than Solomon in all his glory." They possess alike the same properties and characteristics, though in varying degrees, and they severally belong to the genus Allium, each containing "allyl," which is a radical rich in sulphur.
The homely Onion may be taken first as the best illustration of the family. This is named technically Allium cepa, from cep, a head (of bunched florets which it bears). Lucilius called it Flebile coepe, because the pungency of its odour will provoke a flow of tears from the eyes. As Shakespeare says, in Taming of the Shrew:—
"Mine eyes smell onions;
I shall weep anon."
The Egyptians were devoted to Onions, which they ate more than two thousand years before the time of Christ. They were given to swear by the Onion and [210] Garlic in their gardens. Herodotus tells us that during the building of the pyramids nine tons of gold were spent in buying onions for the workmen. But it is to be noted that in Egypt the Onion is sweet and soft; whereas, in other countries it grows hard, and nauseous, and strong.
By the Greeks this bulb was called Krommuon, "apo tau Meuein tas koras," because of shutting the eyes when eating it. In Latin its name unio, signified a single root without offsets.
Raw Onions contain an acrid volatile oil, sulphur, phosphorus, alkaline earthy salts, phosphoric and acetic acids, with phosphate and citrate of lime, starch, free uncrystallized sugar, and lignine. The fresh juice is colourless, but by exposure to the air becomes red. A syrup made from the juice with honey is an excellent medicine for old phlegmatic persons in cold weather, when their lungs are stuffed, and the breathing is hindered.
Raw Onions increase the flow of urine, and promote perspiration, insomuch, that a diet of them, with bread, has many a time cured dropsy coming on through a chill at first, or from exposure to cold. They contain the volatile principle, "sulphide of allyl," which is acrid and stimulating. If taken in small quantities, Onions quicken the circulation, and assist digestion; but when eaten more prodigally they disagree.
In making curative Simples, the Onion (and Garlic) should not be boiled, else the volatile essential oil, on which its virtues chiefly depend, will escape during the process.
The principal internal effects of the Onion, the Leek, and Garlic, are stimulation and warmth, so that they are of more salutary use when the subject is of a cold [211] temperament, and when the vital powers are feeble, than when the body is feverish, and the constitution ardently excitable. "They be naught," says Gerard, "for those that be cholericke; but good for such as are replete with raw and phlegmatick humors." Vous tous qui etes gros, et gras, et lymphatiques, avec l'estomac paresseux, mangez l'oignon cru; c'est pour vous que le bon Dieu l'a fait.