Herbs & Herbal Remedies @ Green Papaya

The Wonder Drug

Family: Amaryllidacae; (includes Onion, Chives, Shallots)

Genus and Species: Allium Sativum

Also known as: Stinking Rose, Healall, Hustic’s or Poor Man’s Treacle

Parts used: Bulb

If the term wonder drug can be applied to any Healing herb, garlic deserves that distinction. It is the world’s second oldest medicine (after ephedra), and still among the best.

Within the Allium genus, garlic is the most powerful (and most thoroughly researched) healer. But traditional herbalists also valued other members of the genus-onions, scallions, leeks, chives, and shallots-though they considered them to be less potent. Modern researchers have reached similar conclusions. Onions have almost as much medicinal value as garlic. Scallions, leeks, chives, and shallots have less.

Caves and Cuneiform

Garlic remains have been found in caves inhabited 10,000 years ago, but the first garlic prescription, chiseled in cuneiform on a Sumerian clay tablet, dates from 3000 s.c. The entire ancient world from Spain to China loved garlic, but no people enjoyed it more than the Egyptians, called “the stinking ones” because of their garlic breath. Egyptians taking solemn oaths swore on garlic in the same way that we swear on the Bible. The herb was found in the tomb of King Tut. And 15 pounds bought a healthy male slave.

Speaking of slavery, garlic played a major role in the lives of the slaves who built Egypt’s pyramids. The Egyptians believed the herb prevented illness and increased strength and endurance. They gave their slaves a daily ration, and the slaves came to revere the herb as their masters did. Legend has it that during the construction of one pyramid, a garlic shortage forced the Egyptians to cut the slaves’ ration. The result was the world’s first recorded strike.

Garlic appeared prominently in the world’s oldest surviving medical text. the Evers Pap/Jrus. It was an ingredient in 22 remedies for headache, insect and scorpion bites, menstrual discomforts, intestinal worms, tumors, and heart problems.

Soon after Moses led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt around 1200 B.C., they complained of missing the finer things of life in bondage-”fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.”

For Combat and Competition

Greek athletes ate garlic before races, and Greek soldiers munched the herb before battle.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Ulysses found strength from garlic against the sorceress, Circe.

Greek midwives hung garlic cloves around birthing rooms to safeguard newborns from disease and witchcraft. As the centuries passed, Europeans fastened braided garlic plants to their doorposts to keep evil spirits at bay, a custom which survives today in the garlic braids that hang in many kitchens.

The “Stinking Rose”

Greek and Roman physicians loved garlic. Hippocrates recommended it for infections, wounds, cancer, leprosy, and digestive problems. Dioscorides prescribed it for heart problems. And Pliny listed it in 61 remedies for ailments ranging from the common cold to epilepsy and from leprosy to tapeworm. Many of these uses have been supported by modern science.

But upper-class Greeks and Romans came to hate the “stinking rose.” They viewed garlic breath as a sign of low birth, a belief that lasted well into the 20th century.

Like the Greeks, ancient India’s Ayurvedic healers prescribed garlic for leprosy, a practice that continued for thousands of years. In fact, when India became a British colony and adopted English, leprosy became known as “peelgarlic” because lepers spent so much time peeling cloves and eating them. The Indians also used garlic to treat cancer. Modern research supports garlic’s ability to treat leprosy and prevent certain cancers.

Ambivalence about garlic was rife in medieval Europe. The well-to-do shunned it, but the peasantry consumed huge amounts and viewed it as an all-purpose preventive medicine and cure-all. By the Elizabethan era, the Latin term for antidote, theriaca, had become the English word treacle, meaning panacea, and garlic was commonly called the “rustic’s or poor man’s treacle.”

As the centuries passed, the upper class returned to garlic, but only medicinally, and even then sparingly. Seventeenth-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper endorsed it “as the poor man’s treacle … a remedy for all diseases and hurts.”

America’s 19th-century Eclectic physicians shared the widespread prejudice against garlic’s “strong, offensive smell … and acrimonious, almost caustic taste.” But they conceded its effectiveness in treating colds, coughs, whooping cough, and other respiratory ailments. The Eclectics also believed fresh garlic juice applied to the ear could cure deafness, a recommendation echoed in some present-day herbals.

Russian Penicillin

During World War I, British, French, and Russian army physicians treated infected battle wounds with garlic juice. They also prescribed garlic to prevent and treat amoebic dysentery.

Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928 launched the Age of Antibiotics, and by World War Il, penicillin and sulfa drugs had largely replaced garlic as the treatment of choice for infected wounds. But Russia’s more than 20 million World War II casualties overwhelmed its antibiotic supply. Red Army physicians relied heavily on garlic, which came to be called Russian penicillin.

Modern herbalists recommend garlic (and the other Alliums) for colds, coughs, flu, fever, bronchitis, ringworm, intestinal worms, elevated cholesterol, and liver, gallbladder, and digestive problems.