Garlic: Ancient Egyptians

Garlic has been used medicinally for around 5000 years. It is thought to have originated in Central Asia and then to have spread rapidly in all directions. Since garlic has been so extensively domesticated, it is thought that no wild species remain.
Garlic has been used for medicinal purposes by more cultures over more time that any other plant product or substance. Scientists believe garlic was very important for the Ancient Egyptians. Garlic was discovered in the tomb of King Tutankhamen as well as the tombs of other Pharaohs dating back to 3200 BC.
The pyramid builders received a daily share of garlic because it is though to have aided in endurance and strength. Besides the Jewish Exodus, the only slave revolt known in Ancient Egypt happened when the Nile flooded the garlic fields and the pyramid builders went without garlic for a year.
Those who built the pyramids were not the only ones to use garlic medicinally. The Ancient Egyptians used garlic to treat bronchial problems such as asthma and illness. They also used it to aid digestion, provide vitality, and shrink hemorrhoids. Garlic was used to treat wounds, tumors, infections, and intestinal parasites. In 1550 BC “Ebers Codex” was written, in it were 22 different medical formulations using garlic as an ingredient.

Natural Substances I would like to Explore

This morning and lastnight I got to thinking about where this was going. I started trying to come up with other foods/plants/stuff I wanted to write about. I want to write more about the history of the uses of some of the natural remedies as well as How to use them. My ideas for substances so far are:

I did some of Garlic
Honey
Cinnamon
Marijuana
Apple Cider Vinegar

Hmm...I'm sure I'll think of more. If anyone actually reads this, have you heard of any Natural things that are supposed to cure or alleviate the symptoms of some ailment?

Ways to Consume Garlic as a Medication

Garlic is a truly amazing plant. But how can we use garlic to treat these ailments? One method is to just consume garlic raw, as cooking can destroy the helpful allicin chemical. Another way is to put garlic and water into a pot and boil it for about half a day until you have a garlic syrup. I’m not in a rush to taste this or see how much you have to consume to make a difference. Also, garlic can be harsh on the stomach when taken in this manner. I know of Allimax pills, they are stabilized allicin made from garlic, but they can be costly. My next quest is to find different ways of cooking or preparing garlic to make it bearable.
My first find on ways to consume garlic isn’t exactly bearable. This one person recommends juicing it and mixing it with something else, such as vegetable juice. They warn, however that garlic is powerful and may cause a burning sensation. I say why not mix it into a bloody mary recipe, using garlic instead of vodka. I suspect the burning sensation of a badly made bloody mary would equal that of one made with garlic, not too bad.
Next I found a website called herbalremediesinfo.com. This website has a few different ways of preparing garlic. They list another method for making garlic syrup. First you take a pound of garlic and peel and mince it. Place it in a wide mouth jar. Add equal parts vinegar and distilled water until the garlic is just covered. Then leave the jar on the counter for 4 days, shaking twice per day. Add one pint of glycerin and let stand one more day. Then strain the mixture into a jar and filter through a linen cloth or cheesecloth. This can be used as is for topical applications. For oral, mix this with honey. You can use it this way for asthma, hiccups, or intestinal “issues”. Take 1tsp every 15 minutes until spasm stops. It will also help with chest and sinus congestion.
For rashes, boils, poison ivy, etc, mash up a few cloves of garlic and tightly wrap in muslin. If the garlic comes in contact with the skin it can burn.


http://www.herbalremediesinfo.com/garlic-article.html

Ailments Garlic May Be Effective Against

In my post "Is it Possible to Cure MRSA with a Common Garden Staple" I mentioned a few alternative uses for garlic. I'd like to explore that more. I haven't done any research on this subject yet, so I will be learning as I write.
Some of the uses I know of include using garlic as an antibiotic/microbial, a facial cleanser for acne, and flea repellant. I have also seen that garlic has been effective in lowering cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar. According to allnaturalhealth.com garlic is a strong antiseptic, antiviral, antifungal, and antiparasitic. Garlic can also be used as an expectorant for chest congestion. Garlic destroys the chicken pox, measles, mumps, rabies, and scarlet fever viruses on contact. Hippocrates even used garlic to treat cancerous tumors. Garlic can be helpful to someone suffering cholera, dysentery, intestinal worms, small pox, tuberculosis, tetanus, and typhoid fever. Intestinal and gas pains can be cured by garlic as it seems to have antispasmatic properties as well.
Next post I'll be looking at how to use garlic to treat ailments.

http://www.all4naturalhealth.com/health-benefits-of-garlic.html

Is it possible to cure MRSA with a common garden staple?

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), also known as “Staph”, is a strain of Staphylococcus that is resistant to broad-spectrum antibiotics. There are two kinds of MRSA infections, Community Associated (CA-MRSA) and Healthcare Facility associated (HA-MRSA). The CA-MRSA is becoming more prevalent in our society. It is commonly found as skin infections in athletes, prisoners, and soldiers. HA-MRSA infections tend to be the worse then CA-MRSA. People in hospitals or nursing facilities tend to have weakened immune systems and open wounds and sores, which allows for easy colonization. It can even colonize inside a person’s body and slowly attack organs.

Some have called MRSA a “super-bug” due to its resistance to antibiotics. Some MRSA infections can be controlled using non-traditional staph antibiotics, such as Vancomyacin, but there have been reports of strains that do not respond to any antibiotics. The infections that don’t respond to antibiotics tend to be the HA-MRSA. If antibiotics won’t kill this “super-bug”, what will?

Ancient Egyptians knew of the secret of garlic. It was even widely used in WWI and II, and not for cooking. Garlic has been known for its many medicinal properties for thousands of years. Soldiers in WWI used garlic to cure dysentery. In WWII when antibiotics were scarce and wounds plentiful, garlic was known as “Russian Penicillin”. I’ll even admit to using garlic overnight on a persistently infected toe only to wake the next morning to find it healing again. There are reports of garlic even being effective in treating acne.

How does garlic do this? When the cell walls in garlic are broken, the plant emits the amino acid alliin and the enzyme allinase. When these two mix, they create a new compound, allicin. Allicin is what makes crushed garlic stink so good. It is also the antibiotic chemical in garlic. So, lets run out to Wal-Mart and buy garlic pills, then we can sit back and watch our ails disappear. Not so fast. Allicin has a very short half-life. By the time you take the garlic pills almost all of the allicin is gone. Garlic pills are still a great supplement, though. There is enough allicin there to help certain things, but not enough to cure MRSA.

So now, the question is how do we combat MRSA. I don’t want to endorse companies, mostly because the president of the US division of this company paid me the respects of a four-word answer to a well thought out email, but there is only one company with the rights to the product. So what is the product? It’s a stabile form of allicin. For decades, research has been ongoing to find a way to stabilize allicin. Then someone figured it out, it’s stabilized in some sort of cold water processing. I have seen the medical journals and studies (the links will be at the end), and this product really seems to work.

Finally, I ask the government a question. Why can’t you (Medicaid) pay for this product to treat my dying friend?

I wrote this article for informative purposes, to get the word out about stabilized allicin, but also to try to get some suggestions on how to go about raising money to buy this for her. If you have any fund-raising suggestion, low-key would be best since it’s a local hospital that gave it to her, I would love to hear your ideas.

Now for the links!!

http://www.allimax.us/Allicin.pdf

http://www.allimax.us/April2005.pdf

http://www.healthsalon.org/375/mrsa-alternative-treatment-with-allicin-testimonial/

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/25704.php