Raw onions and virus

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Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Prebiotics also may help you sleep better and reduce stress — both good outcomes for preventing or recovering from sickness.

And onions also have antioxidants. And maybe one day, onions will play a bigger role in fighting disease. In a sickroom you cannot have a better disinfectant than the onion. It has a wonderful capacity for absorbing germs.

A dish of sliced onions placed in a sickroom will draw away the disease; they must be removed as soon as they lose their odor and become discolored, and be replaced by fresh ones. In remote villages the old custom still exists of placing a plate full of sliced onion beside the bed or coffin of any persons who had died of an infectious disease.

Although those who follow this practice cannot explain it, the fact is that the raw onion destroys germs and purifies the infected air of the death chamber. As to what sorts of contamination the onion is purported to overcome, at various times it has been said to kill flu virus, diphtheria, smallpox, the cold virus, and even whatever nastiness a rotting corpse might be venting into the air, especially one that reached that condition via infectious disease of any description.

No scientific studies back it, and common sense rules it out: cold and flu viruses are spread by contact, not by their nasty microbes floating loosely in the air where the almighty onion can supposedly seek out and destroy them. As the Wall Street Journal noted in of such claims:. The idea that onions have medicinal properties goes back millennia and spans many cultures.

Egyptians thought onions were fertility symbols. Ancient Greeks rubbed them on sore muscles, and Native Americans used them to treat coughs and colds. Herbalists note that the World Health Organization recognizes onion extracts for providing relief in the treatment of coughs, colds, asthma and bronchitis. As with most home remedies, there have been few scientific studies with humans — and none on record involving raw onions placed across a room.