ALLIUM (U. S. P.)—GARLIC. Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage

Garlic is stimulant, diuretic, expectorant, and rubefacient; it is used both for medical and culinary purposes. The medicinal effects above stated are owing to the absorption of its volatile oil, the stimulating action of which causes thirst, promotes the activity of the various excretory organs, as the skin, kidneys, and mucous membrane of the air-tubes, communicating its odor to their excretions. It has been beneficially used in coughs, catarrhal affections, pertussis, hoarseness, worms, and calculous diseases, during the absence of inflammation. Externally, it has been employed as a resolvent in indolent tumors, and as a counter-irritant in cerebral and pulmonary affections. When applied along the spinal column and over the chest of infants, in the form of poultice, it is very useful in pneumonia; and placed over the region of the bladder, it has sometimes proved effectual in producing a discharge of urine when retention has arisen from torpor of the bladder. Garlic juice, oil of sweet almonds, and glycerin, of each equal parts, mixed, and dropped in the ear, has cured several cases of deafness, due probably to excessive cerumen, or to chronic debility of the mucous tissues of the organ of hearing. The dose of fresh garlic is 1 or 2 drachms; of the juice, a small teaspoonful. Large doses cause nausea, vomiting, purging and other unpleasant symptoms. The juice is often made into a syrup with sugar, by nurses, for coughs, catarrh, and pulmonary affections of infants. The odor imparted to the breath by garlic and onions, may be very much diminished by chewing roasted coffee grains, or parsley leaves and seeds.