Garlic; Allium sativum It has been used for centuries for medicinal purposes and as a culinary herb. In the Talmud Book of Ezra, Jews are encouraged to partake of garlic at the Friday night Shabbat meal for the following five reasons: to keep the body warm; to brighten the face; to kill intestinal parasites; to increase the volume of semen; and to foster love and to do away with jealousy. Garlic is mentioned more than twenty times in the ancient Egyptian medical papyrus called the Codex Ebers dating back to ca. 1550 B.C. Pliny the Elder sited more than sixty therapeutic uses for garlic. Dioscorides, chief physician for the Roman army, prescribed garlic for intestinal parasitic disorders. Garlic oil was first isolated in 1844. More than one hundred compounds have been identified as constituents of garlic oil. In the Middle Ages, it was eaten daily as a protection against the bubonic plagues that ravished the European continent. Louis Pasteur described its antibacterial pro...
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