INTRODUCTION
ALLIUM-SAT.- Common Garlic.
RATIONALE OF ITS ACTION.
The effects of Garlic on the system are those of a general stimulant; it quickens the circulation, excites the nervous system, promotes expectoration, produces diaphoresis or diuresis, according as the patient is kept warm or cool, and acts upon the stomach as a tonic carminative. It is also said to be emanagogue; applied to the skin it is rubefacient and irritant. Moderately employed it is beneficial in enfeebled digestion and flatulence, and is habitually used for this purpose by many who have no objection to an offensive breath. It has been given with advantage in chronic catarrh, humoral asthma, and other pectoral affections in which the symptoms of inflammation has been subdued and a feeble condition of the vessels remains. It is advised habitually and with great benefit in such affections occurring in children, as well as in the nervous and spasmodic coughs, to which they are peculiarly liable. Some physicians have highly recommended it in old atonic dropsies and calculous disorders; and it has been employed in fever and ague. It is thought to be an excellent anthelmintic, especially in cases of ascarides, in which it is given both by mouth and rectum. The juice, in doses of a few drops, is said sometimes to check nervous vomiting. If taken too largely, or in excited states of the system, it is apt to cause gastric irritation, flatulence, haemorrhoids, headache, and fever. Bruised and applied to the feet, it is much used as a revulsive in disorders of the head. It is especially useful in the febrile complaints of children, by quieting restlessness and producing sleep. Bruised in oil, it is often tried as a liniment in infantile convulsions, and other cases of spasmodic or nervous disorders among children. It is also used to resolve indolent tumors, and in cases of cutaneous eruption. A clove of Garlic, or a few drops of the juice introduced into the ear, are said to be highly efficacious in atonic deafness. A Garlic poultice applied above the pubes has sometimes restored action to the bladder in cases of retention of urine from debility of that organ. Vogt says that the affinity with the empyreumatic ethereal oils, and renders it serviceable in nervous and verminous diseases; still, he thinks, its principal action is upon the skin and mucous membranes. A decoction in milk is used internally and in clysters against ascarides and lumbrici; it is also employed against blenorrhoeas of the lungs, genital organs, and bowels; in diseases of the urinary organs, such as gravel and dropsy. Dierbach thinks that Garlic acts more upon the skin, and Onions upon the kidneys. According to Medberg, Garlic is very injurious to consumptive and bilious persons, and those suffering with haematuria.-According to Merat and Delens’ “Dict. Univ. de Mat. Medorrhinum,” Vol. I., p. 189: “It sharpens the appetite, stimulates the stomach, facilitates the digestion, and expels flatulence;” and according to them it is an excellent remedy for phlegm. “Pounded Garlic has been applied to the skin on account of its stimulating properties in paralytic or rheumatic diseases; in about two hours after its application it will draw a blister like a mustard plaster.” Murray furnishes the following sketch of the empirical uses of this drug: The anthelmintic and febrifuge properties of Garlic were known even to Plinius and Dioscorides, and have since been verified by a number of physicians of the highest rank. Rosenstein, Taube, and the English physicians Bisset, have even expelled taenia with Garlic. According to Laurembergius and Lind, Garlic is not only a preventive of scurvy, but a real specific for this disease. Celsus and Dioscorides recommended it in old chronic coughs, accompanied by dyspnoea and a profuse expectoration of ropy phlegm. In accordance with this recommendation it was used with success by Mead, Rosenstein, and even Mercury. Rosenstein relates that, by means of Garlic, he succeeded in stopping a chronic cough, with general prostration and excessive emaciation. Three similar cases were cured by Teste.- J.C.P.
CLINICAL REMARKS.
In intermittent fevers, Garlic is a highly esteemed Hindoo remedy. It is, or was also, formerly employed in Europe. Bergius speaks highly of its virtues; he commenced with one clove, night and morning, and increased the quantity until four or five were taken at a dose.
The quantity of Sulphur which Onions and Garlic contain make them useful in many cutaneous complaints.
Teste recommends Allium-sat. very highly in diabetes-mellitus, as a palliative. It has been used in retention of urine, in dropsy, and gravel. It would seem somewhat homoeopathic to Bright’s disease. In calculous diseases and ulcerations of the bladder, Bransby Cooper relates a severe case, treated by Mr. Cline, in which, after a variety of remedies had been employed in vain, Leek tea afforded the most astonishing relief. Cooper has given it several times since, sometimes with, at others without benefit.- J.C.P. It is recommended cases of erythematous angina, not preceded by coryza, occasioned by a cold or by excesses at table, and attended with a sticky feeling in the throat, with dryness, tickling, heat, and a sense of rawness in the larynx, roughness of voice, hollow, dry, and not very frequent cough, dry heat on the back of the hands, and slight moisture in the palms, of all which symptoms generally come on in the evening. In cases of chronic bronchial catarrh, with profuse mucous expectoration, with acute pains in the chest (especially in fat individuals). In cases of permanent dyspnoea of long standing. In whooping cough, Dr. Dewees says he has never employed any remedy of equal service with Garlic in substance, to relieve the cough of habit, which often remains after whooping cough; he has used it repeatedly, and never seen it fail. A child, aged six or seven years, may eat one-third of a clove daily, gradually increasing the quantity.- J.C.P.
Three cases of rheumatism of the hips were cured by Allium.
GENERAL EFFECTS.
Catarrhal fever, with predominance of coldness; shiverings from day to day, coldness all over, with heat in the face; horripilations in the forenoon and in the evening; general heat, with malaise, thirst, tense pulse, sweat after twelve o’clock in the day-time; sweat with itching; sour sweat; fetid sweat; vomiting during the fever.
SLEEP.
Oppression of the chest during sleep; coldness during sleep, with occasions frequent waking; thirst at night, preventing sleep.
SKIN.
Flaccid, skin; formication; excessive sensitiveness of the skin; tension of the skin, in the joints; dry skin; white spots, which afterwards turn yellow, and are accompanied with stinging and itching; red spots in the back, hands, on the inner surface of the thighs, and on the genital organs.
MIND, DISPOSITION, AND SENSORIUM.
Vertigo when steadily looking at a thing for a long time; or transient, and only on rising from a chair.
HEAD.
Weight in the head; dull pain in the occiput in the morning; heaviness in the head, which cases during the menses, and reappears afterwards; throbbing in the temples; heaviness in the forehead, which scarcely allows one to open one’s eyes.
EARS.
Buzzing in the ears.
TASTE AND APPETITE.
Hot taste in the mouth, coming from the throat, exactly like the taste of Garlic, immediately after taking the drug; it continued the whole morning, and returned after the second breakfast so strongly that it caused a flow of saliva, dryness of the lips and palate; profuse flow of sweetish saliva in the mouth, in the forenoon, after eating; more particularly in the afternoon and at night. Eructations; immediately sensation as if something cold were rising to the throat; voracious appetite; burning eructations after eating.
STOMACH AND ABDOMEN.
Straining to vomit, with retraction of the abdomen; burning in the stomach, stitches of pain in the stomach; twisting and pinching around the navel.
STOOL.
Soft stools. Diarrhoeic stools, accompanied and succeeded by cutting pain in the abdomen and loins. Constipation, with dull pain in the abdomen, which continues almost all the time (for eight days).
URINE.
Profuse whitish urine (which is rendered cloudy by the addition of nitric acid).
GENITAL ORGANS.
During the menses, pimples break out about the vulva, and extensive excoriations occur on the internal surface of the thighs; the spots are of a bright red color, and accompanied by itching and smarting on the inner surface of the labia-majora and the orifice of the vagina.
THORAX.
Coryza; accumulations of phlegm in the throat in the morning, with heaviness in the head. Cough, with painful irritation in the windpipe; difficult expectoration of a glutinous mucus; cough in the morning, after going out of his room, with profuse expectoration of mucus; almost continual rattling of mucus in the bronchia. Stitches in one side of the chest; stitches under the shoulder-blades and pectoral muscles, increased which coughing and drawing a long breath. Embarrassed respiration. The chest- symptoms are worse in the open air, after eating, and when stooping.
