Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/375

 ii s. xii. NOV. 6, mo.] NOTES AND Q QERIES.

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WILLIAM HAWABD (11 S. xii. 320). He ~\vas presented by Magdalen College to the rectory of Brandiston, Norfolk, in 1742, which he resigned on presentation to the rectory of Standlake, Oxfordshire, in 1744. He was buried at Standlake 18 Feb., 1756. An account is given in vol. v. of my ' Register of the Fellows' (1906), pp. 65-6, where is printed an extract of a letter from his brother-in-law, Adolphus Meetkerke, with particulars of his will. W. D. MACBAY.

AUTHOR OF QUOTATION WANTED (11 S. xii. 320). " A shepherd's crook," &c. These lines occur in ' Tales of a Greek Island,' by Julia Dragoumis. There are other quota- tions of a similar nature from Rennell Rodd in the story book. E. C. MALAN.

West Cliff Hall, Bournemouth.

THE VIRTUES OF ONIONS (11 S. xii. 101, 149, 167, 209, 245, 286). In Benjamin Taylor's
 * Storyology,' 1900, p. 467, seq., we read :

" Among the Greeks both onions and garlic were held in high regard, both as articles of food and medicaments. Theophrastus wrote a book on onions, as did also Palladius. . . .The Romans thought not only that the onion gave strength to thv* human frame, but that it would also improve the pugnacious quality of their gamecocks ....

" It was the practice in some places to hang Tip or burn an onion as a safeguard against witchcraft, and the theory of this was that the devil respected it because it was an ancient object of worship. This seems a survival of the Egyptian story ; but Mr. Hilderic Friend says that the Arabs, Chinese, and many other peoples, to this day employ onions, leeks, or garlic for preventing witchcraft .... Bacon gravely tells of a man who lived for several days on the smell of onions and garlic alone ....

" The belief that the eating of onions will acclimatize a traveller seems not uncommon in Eastern countries."

Two examples of this are given from Burne's ' Travels into Bokhara ' and Morier's 'Travels in Persia.' After quoting from ' The Family Dictionary,' popular in his grandfather's time, a certain remedy for the plague composed of treacle and onion and lemon-juice, Taylor proceeds to say :

" Old Celsus. . . .regarded several of the onion tribe as valuable in cases of ague, and Pliny had the same belief. In our own time the onion is held to be an excellent anti-scorbutic, and is thought to be more useful on shipboard than lime- juice in preventing scurvy.

" In fact, in all skin diseases, and in many inflammatory disorders, preparations of the onion have a real value. The juice is also useful in stopping bleeding, although one may hesitate to believe, as was popularly supposed, that a drop of it will cure earache, and that persistent applica- tion will remove deafness [a Japanese medical work entitled ' Kwdkeiseikiuhd ' expresses the o opinion as this popular European one].

There still exists, however, a belief that onion- juice is the best hair restorer in the market, in spite of its disagreeable smell.

" It would take too long to mention all the virtues that have been claimed, with more or less reason, for all the members of the Allium genus, but it is a curious fact that the onion, which relieves dyspepsia and aids the digestion of some, is a certain cause of indigestion in others. Is it not said that Napoleon, who was a martyr to indigestion, lost the Battle of Leipsic through having partaken of a too hurried meal of beefsteak and onions ? ... .It is open to grave doubt whether the author of ' The Family Dictionary ' was right in saying that ' they that will eat onions daily will enjoy better health than otherwise.' . . . ."

From John Petherick's ' Egypt, the Soudan, and Central Africa,' 1861, p. 335, we learn that the people of Kordofan in his day resorted to the singular method as following in cases of smallpox :

" As soon as the disease is pronounced, a bed of ashes is prepared on the ground, upon which the patient is laid in a state of nudity, and from which he is not removed until either carried to the grave, or until, by a marvel, he recovers. The only remedy applied is the juice of raw onions to the eyes when they become attacked ; and so obstinate are they in their belief of the efficacy of ashes, with which the unfortunate patient becomes encrusted, that in many instances I have been unable to dissuade them from the cruelty they were ignorantly committing."

Turning to China, we read in the eighteenth- century encyclopaedia * Yuen-kien-lui-han,' torn, cccxcviii., that the onion helps the digestion of cereal foods ; that it is called Harmonizing Herb because it harmonizes well all manners of food ; and that the ancient philosopher Chwang-tsze opined that, should one drink wine mixed with onions in the springtime, it would make all his five organs heart, lungs, liver, spleen, and kidneys open and unobstructed. In Li-Shi-Chin's ' System of Materia Medica,' 1578, it is said the onion stems have a solid outside and hollow inside, and hence sympathetically they are good for the lungs.

As a specimen of the Japanese leechcraft still surviving among the rustics in this part, I shall give the following from mv diary of 6 April, 1914:

" This evening I was called on by Sakamoto, the septuagenary eel-monger, who told me this method of toothache cure : ' Place an extremely heated piece of flat stone or tile in a watery basin, care being taken to leave its upper surface dry above the water-surface. Drop upon it some quantity of onion seeds and rape oil, cover it \yith an inverted funnel, and insert its pipe's end into the patient's ear on the same side as the afflicted tooth. As the strong-scented smoke enters the ear, you will witness a cloud of minute worms issue therefrom and fall in the basin through the funnel. These are really worms, not onion seeds as you might suppose, for all of them sink in the