so that a cure is promptly
produced. On which principle the Onion porridge is a scientific
remedy, as food, and as Physic, during the first progress of a
catarrhal attack, and _pari passu_ the medicinal tincture of the red
Onion may be likewise curatively given.

[214] Spanish Onions, which are imported into this country in the
winter, are sweet and mucilaginous. A peasant in Spain will munch
an onion just as an English labourer eats an apple.

At the present day Egyptians take onions, roasted, and each cut into
four pieces, with small bits of baked meat, and slices of an acid
apple, which the Turks call kebobs. With this sweet and savoury dish
they are so delighted, that they trust to enjoy it in paradise. The
Israelites were willing to return to slavery and brick-making for
their love of the Onion; and we read that Hecamedes presented
some of the bulbs to Patrochus, in _Homer_, as a regala. These are
supplied liberally to the antelopes and giraffes in our Zoological
Gardens, which animals dote on the Onion.

A clever paraprase of the word Onion may be read in the lines:--

"Charge! Stanley, charge! On! Stanley, on!
Were the last words of Marmion.
If _I_ had been in Stanley's place
When Marmion urged him to the chase,
In me you quickly would descry
What draws a tear from many an eye."

For chilblains apply onions with salt pounded together, and for
inflamed or protruding piles, raw Onion pulp, made by bruising the
bulb, if kept bound to the parts by a compress, and renewed as
needed, will afford certain relief.

The Garlic (_Allium sativum_), Skorodon of the Greeks, which was
first cultivated in English gardens in 1540, takes its name, from
_gar_, a spear; and _leac_, a plant, either because of its sharp
tapering leaves, or perhaps as "the war plant," by reason of its
nutritive and stimulating qualities for those who do battle. It is
known also [215] to many as "Poor-man's Treacle," or "Churls
Treacle," from being regarded by rustics as a treacle, or antidote to
the bite of any venomous reptile.

The bulb, consisting of several combined cloves, is stimulating,
antispasmodic, expectorant, and diuretic. Its active properties
depend on an essential oil which may be readily obtained by
distillation. A medicinal tincture is made (H.) with spirit of wine, of
which from ten to twenty drops may be taken in water several times
a day. Garlic proves useful in asthma, whooping-cough, and ot