Me (center) and Mary Anna Evans being interviewed in OKC |
Yours Truly and Carolyn Hart |
I'm home now, doing the final proofreading on my next novel, trying to recover from several days of being sociable, and being thankful that I don't have a case of the killer flu like I did at this time last year. In 2017 I wrote a novel called Return of the Raven Mocker which was set during the influenza epidemic of 1918 and included lots of early 20th Century home remedies for the flu. I used some of these when I was sick and they are actually helpful, so in the spirit of public service, I'm including a couple of preventative suggestions for you, Dear Reader. It’s fascinating to see what people resorted to before anti-viral drugs were available. When I was doing research on the book I received an email from my sister-in-law Dolores on this very topic. Here is an excerpt:
My Grandmother always baked an onion for a head cold.It loosened the congestion. I had forgotten about it until I read this email (I liked the smell also~)
In 1919 when the flu killed 40 million people there was this Doctor who visited the many farmers to see if he could help them combat the flu. Many of the farmers and their families had contracted it and many died. The doctor came upon this one farmer and to his surprise, everyone was very healthy. When the doctor asked what the farmer was doing that was different the wife replied that she had placed an unpeeled onion in a dish in the rooms of the home, (probably only two rooms back then). The doctor couldn't believe it and asked if he could have one of the onions and place it under the microscope. She gave him one and when he did this, he did find the flu virus in the onion. It obviously absorbed the bacteria, therefore keeping the family healthy.
This email was circulating around the web, and I expect it’s apocryphal, but I was interested because in my research I had found several home remedies that involve onions, and this fit right in. In fact, all the allium plants - onions, shallots, leeks, especially garlic - have volatile oils that seem to be antibacterial and/or antiviral.
We didn’t have much garlic around the old homestead when I was a kid, but garlic is truly useful for fighting disease. Research shows that garlic builds white blood cells, thus boosting immunity. Besides, it’s delicious.
If you’ve never baked a head of garlic, now is the time. Trim off the top of the garlic head to expose the cloves, drizzle a little olive oil over it, wrap the head in some foil or place it in a clay or ceramic baking dish. Bake the head in a hot oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cloves are very soft. Squeeze the baked garlic out of the cloves into a small bowl and mash it up with a fork. At this point you can add oil, herbs, a little salt, whatever appeals. Or you can just spread the garlic on a cracker like butter and chow down. Even if you are not a garlic fan, I can assure you that well-baked garlic is infinitely milder than the raw stuff.
And speaking of the raw stuff, remember that Roman gladiators used to chew cloves of raw garlic to make them strong. You bet it did, in more ways than one.
So, place a few raw, unpeeled onions around the house and chow down on some garlic. It may help you avoid the flu, if for no other reason than your friends will keep their distance. And you won’t be bothered by vampires this Halloween, either.
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*"In the neighborhood" is a relative term. Woodward is a three hour drive from Oklahoma City, way closer to the Texas panhandle than to the middle of Oklahoma