150
NOTES AND QUERIES, [iis.xn. AUG. 21, ms.
effect) for to bruse Onions, and therewith to rub
those parts that be troubled with a skurfe and
running mange, as also to recover haire where
it is shed and gon. Being boiled, they are given
for to be eaten, unto those who are diseased with
the blodie Flux or pain of the rains & loins. Their
outward pilings burnt into ashes & mingled with
vinegre. cure the bitings and stings of serpents, if
the place be bathed or anointed therewith, yea,
and the Onion itselfe being applied with vinegre,
cures the sting of that shrewd worme Milliped."
Miller, in his ' Botanicum Officinale,' 1722, says :
" They are somewhat windy, but otherwise very wholesome for those who abound with cold and moist Humors, and are helpful against Coughs and Diseases of the Breast ; beaten into a cataplasm with a little Salt, they are a very good Remedy to fetch out the Fire in Burns or Scalds, when the skin is not off."
Doubtless Culpeper, Gerard, and the various other authors of herbals will give other uses. Spanish onions, boiled and served with butter, are extensively used to cure colds in children, and raw onions are sometimes recommended for kidney trouble. A poultice of hot onions is applied for a cold in the chest, or croup, and the juice of roasted onions is taken internally for the same complaints in the United States. In Bustin's Island, Me., onion poultices are applied to the wrists and ankles for colds, whilst poultices of onions, baked or boiled in milk, are thought to have wonderful " draw- ing " or healing virtues in Maine and Chelsea, Mass. Their absorbent power for germs is universally recognized. Much could be collected on the other side of the question the ill effects caused by onions, whilst another interesting feature from the point of view of folk-lore is their use as a love charm. THOMAS WM. HUCK.
38, King's Road, Willesden Green, N.W.
The use of onions as absorbents of plague, poison, &c., belongs, I should say, rather to folk-lore than to medicine. Onions were supposed to have the power of resisting poison when roasted and eaten with Venice treacle spread on them, and they were applied to the part bitten by a mad dog with much the same intention ; but the practice of hanging them up in houses to draw to themselves maladies which might otherwise fall on the inmates, as Friend, in " Flowers and Flower-Lore,' says they do in Bohemia, is probably connected with another practice which the same writer tells us he has frequently noticed in the East, that of suspending a bundle of onions and other plants over the door as a protection against witchcraft. The onion was a sacred plant, and was used in religious services in Egypt
and elsewhere. It is said, too, to be still
used in love-divination ; it had, in short,,
many magical properties. To dream of
onions is said to portend sickness.
C. C. B.
The notion that onions act as a preserva- tive against cholera can be illustrated by a passage in Fletcher's ' Mad Lover,' II. i.,. where, in reply to Siphax's ' The plague I durst,' Memnon rejoins " Still shorter ; I'll cure it with an onion."
The medicinal virtues of onions are re- corded in ' Hibbocrates and Galen,' and other ancient writers. The elder Pliny, in his encyclopaedic ' Natural History,' Bk. XX. v. (20), 39 sqq., has a long list of ailments for which onions in some form, external or internal, are recommended. He does not forget to mention deafness. His list includes sudden dumbness, weak eye-sight, dog bite r toothache, lumbago, and baldness. Rubbing bald patches with an onion is still, I believe,, in vogue in some parts of the country.
EDWARD BENSLY.
Onions were in very good odour with Culpeper, who recommended them to help the biting of a mad dog and as cures for coughs, lethargy, and epidemical diseases r as well as for worms and other annoyances. Mixed with treacle they might be bene- ficially applied to plague sores :
"Mars owns them, and they have gotten this quality to draw any corruption to them, for if you pill one and lay him upon a dunghill, you shall find him rotten in half a day by drawing putrefaction to it."
Your correspondent will do well to consult ' The English Physitian Enlarged ' for himself.
Swan, of the ' Speculum. Mundi,' tells us that onions mixed with salt and honey will " destroy warts, and make them fall out by the very roots," and he adds :
"There is another propertie in the Onion, which (when I had little else to do) I observed in this following epigram :
He that a bad wife follows to the grave, And knows not how, for joy, a tear to crave, May Onions use to make him weep in shew ; For who can weep indeed to lose a shrew ?
ST. SWITHIN.
I have been told that a raw onion is a certain remedy, if applied externally, when stung by a wasp. W. B. S.
Onions are a local cure for wasp or bee stings, especially when a wasp has been swallowed. Onion broth is given to cure colds. E. E. COPE.
