Instead of asking for medical advice, it is better to eat what to supplement, which is a simple idea in the hearts of many people. And it is certainly not only the people who think of food as the Chinese, the legend of Hippocrates has a famous saying: "Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food" (Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food).
Although the above sentence is actually not found in the handwriting of the "father of modern medicine", looking for medicine from food is definitely the path traveled by countless medical sages - Shennong tasted hundreds of herbs, and it is estimated that he first tasted what seemed to be edible, and would not directly nibble on the bark.
In fact, food and medicine are better to separate (Image source: Pixabay)
Many stories and anecdotes revolve around the legend of food curing diseases, such as chocolate from the New World to Europe, it became a black magic medicine in the hands of doctors, remember the various chocolate stuffed in "Harry Potter" Mrs. Pomfrey, right?
Of course, chocolate is delicious after all, and some "medicinal foods" that have also been circulating for a long time are not so easy to accept, such as garlic. The story of "garlic you are fierce" to cure diseases and save people has been circulating for a long time.
"Garlic" Linkico
According to legend, garlic originated at the foot of the Tian Shan Mountains in Central Asia, roughly in the territory of present-day Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan,[1] and was then taken to the four directions by merchant travelers. Near the water tower first got garlic, the Sumerians in the two river basins, ancient India and China, all have garlic into the medicine record in 2000 BC.
But the first ancient civilization to pick up garlic was Egypt. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus recorded that in order to keep the slaves who built the Great Pyramids manually working, the slaves would add a lot of garlic to their diet, and without garlic slaves would strike. Pharaoh bought garlic to appease the slaves, and the money spent was worth $30 million today.
There is also a clear record of large-scale garlic cultivation in ancient Egyptian history (Image source: Wikipedia)
Of course, garlic is not the exclusive food of manual laborers. In the codex Ebers, an ancient Egyptian medical book written around 1500 BC, 22 therapies containing garlic are recorded to cure "abnormal hyperplasia, insect infections, and physical discomfort".
Garlic even served as hard currency, and it only cost 15 pounds (13.6 pounds) of garlic to buy an adult male slave. Although some scholars believe that the Egyptian nobles hated the taste of garlic and thought that eating garlic was a loss of identity, archaeologists found garlic in the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun... Did Pharaoh want to ward off evil spirits?
In the book of Exodus, when Moses led Jewish slaves to the Promised Land, garlic also appeared. The Bible says, "And the Israelites cried out, 'Who will give us meat?' We remember eating fish without spending money in Egypt, and we remember cucumbers, watermelons, leeks, shallots, and garlic. (Numbers, Chapter 11)
In the Jewish text of the Talmud, a similar account is recorded: "The priest taught us that garlic has five characteristics: full stomach, warming the face, and removing parasites from the intestines..." [4] And in the 3rd century BC, garlic came to ancient Greece.[5]
Look at the origins of medicine, all look at Greece (Image source: Brooklyn College)
In the hands of ancient Greek doctors, the use of garlic was even more. Hippocrates used garlic to "clean the lungs of patients with lung discomfort, promote maternal placenta, relieve pain, and inhibit abnormal uterine hyperplasia"[4], while Dioscorides used garlic to treat snake bites, regulate menstruation, and prevent seasickness.[1]
But the most surprising thing is this passage in the historical data: at the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, many athletes would eat garlic before the game to make themselves "higher, faster and farther", that is, garlic should be the world's first sports doping.
Some scientists can't help but wonder: If athletes eat garlic, does this mean that the dosage and timing of garlic are regulated accordingly? Is it a prototype of modern clinical trials[4]? After all, there are legends that before the armies of some Greek city-states went out on expeditions, they also had to eat garlic to improve their combat effectiveness, indicating that this practice was still quite popular.
In the words of Galen in Roman times, garlic was "the panacea of the hillbilly" and was used to treat a variety of ailments. However, humans soon discovered another wonderful use of garlic.
Eat garlic until you smoke the beef, just to...
Those who know a little about Buddhism should know that garlic is included in the category of meat and fish, and the Lengyan Sutra says: "It is the sentient beings who ask for samadhi, when the five kinds of spices (green onions, garlic, leeks, herbs, and xingrui) of the world are broken." It is five kinds of spices, cooked food fornication, raw and increased".
For this reason, garlic was not very popular during the ancient Buddhist practice in China and Japan (Image: Pixabay)
"Cooked food for adultery", the Buddhist vernacular makes people's ears hot, but this is not the "clinical discovery" of Shakyamuni Buddha. The Above-mentioned Jewish scripture, the Talmud, says that garlic has five uses, the last of which is to "enhance the motility of sperm," and it is even recorded that the high priest asked men to eat garlic on the eve of Sabbath to "enhance the love of husband and wife."
In the legend, the famous king Henry IV of French history who ate this effect of garlic to the youth. He was the founder of the Bourbon dynasty, and was known as "Le Bon Roi" (Good King) by the French.
Even the best king can't stand the ridicule, or like the Qing Palace drama, the more legendary the deeds, the more legends there are? At least Henry IV's name of "Le Roi d'Ail" is not entirely fictional.
According to historical records, when Henry IV was born and baptized, he was smeared with garlic, which was believed by Christianity at that time to have a role in warding off evil spirits, and the king later ate garlic every time, garlic in every dish, and even chewed garlic like fruit.
Henry IV was very concerned about the people's livelihood, and he famously said: Let every French farmer have a chicken in his bowl (Image: Wikipedia)
Although it is generally believed that Henry IV's eating garlic is mainly to prevent disease and eliminate disasters, there are also many historians who think about the affairs of men and women: Henry IV is a well-known seed of affection, there are many mistresses in his life, and it is really difficult to cope with a large number of beautiful children without relying on the exuberant "energy" brought by eating garlic.
However, eating garlic also had obvious side effects, with Henry IV's bad breath being said to be "enough to bring down a cow 20 steps away".[6] And his mistress sprayed him with perfume. It seems that the French perfume is also famous in the world for a reason.
The French, who love garlic, have more than one king. During World War II, the Free French fighters in exile in England were demoralized because they could not eat garlic, and organized an operation to steal the taste of their hometown from the occupied areas of Nazi Germany. Britain's MI6 also had to let agents sent to France specialize in eating garlic.
Garlic is such a thing, and no matter how much some people hate it, some people like it. But if you only think that garlic medicine has continued until the Renaissance and modern times, because of the effect of aphrodisiac and enhancing physical strength, it is very wrong.
Sterilization and lipid reduction, magical and changeable
Many people have heard of pasteurization, but Pasteur, who proposed this method, was the first to use scientific methods in 1858 to prove that garlic has a bactericidal effect. Pasteur also said that garlic had a miraculous effect on killing "hard-to-kill bacteria".
Some scholars believe that Pasteur killed Helicobacter pylori with garlic, but Helicobacter pylori was found for a long time (Image source: Wikipedia)
It seems that a series of historical records of garlic fighting infection, killing parasites and even preventing plague are really not false words. At the molecular level, garlic is mainly allicin (allicin), which produces the "infamous" taste of garlic.
In both world wars, garlic was used to treat gangrene and wound infections, even after the advent of penicillin - with the sparse production of penicillin at that time, the high price, garlic's practicality was much higher. In the Tsarist army and the Soviet Red Army, garlic even had the nickname "Russian penicillin".
Some scientists have even used the anti-infective effect of garlic to solve a large number of greenhouse gases emitted by animal husbandry, and experiments have shown that adding garlic to cattle feed can kill methane-producing gut microorganisms and halve methane emissions [9].
With the progress of science, some other benefits of garlic have also been excavated, such as lowering lipids and blood pressure to protect the cardiovascular system, reducing the risk of lung cancer and other cancers, it is said that eating raw garlic more than twice a week is related to the 44% reduction in lung cancer risk [10]."
The benefits are linked to the amount of food eaten, as long as the dose is sufficient, everything ... (Image source: Cleveland Medical Center)
Of course, there is an old saying that as long as the dose is sufficient, everything is toxic, and even if you can eat a few pounds of garlic to fight infection and prevent disease, I am afraid that walking on the street is also a source of air pollution. But since you can "one apple a day, the doctor is away from me", why not add garlic? Boss, come on!
Resources:
1.Petrovska B B, Cekovska S. Extracts from the history and medical properties of garlic[J]. Pharmacognosy Reviews, 2010, 4(7): 106.
2.http://greyduckgarlic.com/garlic-and-medicine.html
3.Candee A, Andrusia D. Gentle Healing for Baby and Child: A Parent's Guide to Child-friendly Herbs and Other Natural Remedies for Common Ailments and Injuries[M]. Pocket Books, 2000.
4.Rivlin R S. Historical perspective on the use of garlic[J]. The Journal of Nutrition, 2001, 131(3): 951S-954S.
5.Crawford D. Garlic-growing and agricultural specialization in Graeco-Roman Egypt[J]. Chronique d'Egypte, 1973, 48(96): 350-363.
6.Kiple K F, Ornelas K C. Cambridge world history of food[M]. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
7.https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/secret-ww2-mission-saw-garlic-13004751
8.Sivam G P. Protection against Helicobacter pylori and Other Bacterial Infections by Garlic[J]. The Journal of nutrition, 2001, 131(3): 1106S-1108S.
9.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/the-plate/2014/04/24/how-garlic-may-save-the-world/
10.Jin Z Y, Wu M, Han R Q, et al. Raw garlic consumption as a protective factor for lung cancer, a population-based case–control study in a Chinese population[J]. Cancer Prevention Research, 2013, 6(7): 711-718.
Header image source: Pixabay