Onion Breath

Russia's newest medical weapons against wound bacteria are among its oldest--onions and garlic. Say Drs. I. V. Toroptsev and A. G. Filatova, who made the wound experiments: "The ancient medicinal remedies used over thousands of years no longer appear absurd.'' The evidence for the vegetables as germicides, presented in last week's American Review of Soviet Medicine, would not have surprised any Russian peasant--he uses onions and garlic as a protection against typhus.

Between 1928 and 1930, a Russian scientist named B. Tokin noticed that "a paste prepared from a small amount of macerated onion, garlic or other allied plant immediately emits volatile substances which are lethal to yeast cultures," frogs' eggs, protozoa (one-celled animals which live in water), etc. Two years ago Drs. Toroptsev and Filatova began grinding up fresh onions and garlic to see whether the smell would do any good to infected wounds of rabbits. It did.

They then tried the vapor on eleven cases of infected amputation stumps. Freshly ground onion (potency is lost in about 15 minutes) was applied to the patient so that the onions did not touch the wound. The vapor was held in by layers of gauze. Healing was complete in a month or so, in all but one case.

The mysterious substances which give plant vapors their germicidal properties the Russians call phytoncides (meaning: killers from plants).

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