
“Eat More Onions”: Desperate and massively debatable medical advice from 1918 - Hooke
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/eat-more-onions
======
notthemessiah
_In North Carolina, young Dan Tonkel had taken to wearing a bag of asafetida
around his neck, in the belief that the stinking extract would protect him.
“It smelled to high heaven,” he recalled. “People thought the smell would kill
germs. So we all wore a bag of asafetida and smelled like rotten flesh.”_

For most of human history, we thought that germs were spread by certain odors.
So to counteract them, we would often use aromas: this is why plague doctor
masks had the horn which was filled with herbs.

EDIT: I meant diseases were thought to be spread by odors, as we didn't yet
have a germ theory of disease.

~~~
MrEldritch
And the funny thing is, plague doctor masks were actually fairly effective -
it turns out that a beak stuffed full of herbs is actually a pretty
serviceable medieval-era substitute for a surgical facemask at preventing you
from inhaling aerosols.

~~~
gascan
Yeah, it's kind of funny how we arrived at some of the right answers for
totally the wrong reasons. The whole "bad air" concept? Total hokum, but an
abundance of fresh air will help control airborne transmission.

~~~
fjsolwmv
If you realize that experiment generally orecedes theory, it's completely
sensible. Experiments are reproducible, theories are abstract. Making could
decisions is more useful than having correct explanations.

~~~
ItsMe000001
> _Experiments are reproducible_

Not nitpicking (at least that's not my intent), just adding: Only if you know
what the variables are.

This occurred to me because I'm myself an interesting medical case beating
even a professor of medicine's prediction, as well as independent ones from
various doctors about other things that turned out to be symptoms of the same
underlying chronic poisoning issue that I had to diagnose myself, and only
then find the right specialist for it. There has been sooo much interesting
stuff going on in my body during years of slow recovery (and a few "miracles"
that left doctors literally speechless), but I would not be able to say how
you could repeat the "experiment". Too little is known about any of what goes
on inside me right now, my doctor (researcher at university clinic) has long
ago admitted that we left the area of known study-supported medicine behind.

I suspect a few mechanisms based on observing myself that I have no way and no
idea how to prove. So I'm of course not certain what I can claim, or what
exactly happened, but neither would I know how to repeat my personal
experiment even if human experiments were possible. It's just too much unknown
territory. And in the end my experiences will all be lost, unfortunately.

An example for something I suspect: Some diseases like the common cold may not
always be orthogonal and superfluous. In my case, over the years, I got more
and more the impression that it actively helped my body to get rid of what was
stored over decades. I suspect that everything is much more intertwined and
connected and not separate. One prediction I _could_ make based on this
suspicion is that if we were to be able to eliminate mild diseases like the
cold completely we would get more serious diseases or other issues down the
road. That's not a practical experiment though, maybe some large-scale
observational studies can get some hints one way or the other, but it will be
too messy and too uncertain for anything even close to a definite proof or
disproof.

Another thing I suspect is that even very low level exposure (far below
officially allowed levels) to heavy metals has very real consequences - it's
just that on an individual basis we are almost utterly unable to show it. We
can do it only on a population basis, and we all know how messy that is with
all the known and unknown confounders.

------
forapurpose
_Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd._ [0]

What else would you have done in their position? If you were the health
authorities? Do nothing? At its heart, I think this issue is the same one as
social science experiments being replicated with lower strength results: We
naturally want to handle information as if the truth value is binary, as in
mathematical logic and and IF ... THEN statements, true or false. Wouldn't
that be wonderful and easy? When the information is imperfect, it seems like
we feel justified in targeting our emotions at the offender, but they are
doing the only thing they can - acting under uncertainty. Was telling people
to eat onions a bad choice, given their choices, and in _foresight_?

As everyone knows from personal experience, if you are giving medical advice,
doing scientific research, or making a decision for your startup, the
information and possible conclusions are not like in the textbook - they are
unclear and messy. You can't wait for the perfect stuff.

[0] Attributed to Voltaire

~~~
whatshisface
There's a big difference between thinking or saying "I know what I'm doing and
there is no risk," when you're clueless, and saying "We are facing a known
unknown and have to take a risk." For one thing, if the blowhard eventually
comes across the real answer he'll ignore it because he thinks he already
understands the situation.

~~~
afarrell
The problem is that sometimes you don’t have the luxury of being honest with
people. Sometimes if you try to give the honest, nuanced picture of the
situation, then you just end up making them nervous or you’ll sound ridiculous
or flip-floppy in one of the ways that normal honest people often sound
ridiculous. At the next election, voters’ll dump you for a Real Man who will
‘talk straight’ to them.

I would never want to be a politician.

~~~
whatshisface
Facing the ethical reality, if your team doesn't want to take a certain risk
(based on their estimation of their own risk-tolerance), you're not lying for
their own good if you convince them that the risk isn't there. If they _do_
want to take the risk, then you can inspire a pretty cool culture by making
the importance of the task at hand clear to everybody.

~~~
afarrell
If you are able to build a team, then you often have the ability to judge your
hires based on their ability to accept that:

\- we live in a world of tradeoffs

\- we live in a world of uncertainty

\- order and trust are far more fragile than chaos and discord

This is not so when working with a constituency.

------
emodendroket
Asafetida today is probably best known for its use in Indian cuisine.

~~~
abritinthebay
You're getting downvoted for some reason. You're 100% correct.

In Indian cuisine it's used as an umami enhancer. Usually with turmeric in
vegetable dishes - especially lentil curries like dal and sambar but also
those based on potato and cauliflower.

Kashmiri cuisine famously uses it in Rogan Josh.

------
qwerty456127
I still believe eating more onions is a great idea because of the
fructooligosaccharides (prebiorics that good gut bacteria feed on).

~~~
AstralStorm
Unfortunately there is not enough evidence that such prebiotics help with
anything.

Other than increasing flatulence that is.

------
danielbln
Seems down, here's a mirror:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180918143108/https://www.lapha...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180918143108/https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/eat-
more-onions)

------
the-dude
From 1940 : [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-
propagand...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/a-wwii-propaganda-
campaign-popularized-the-myth-that-carrots-help-you-see-in-the-dark-28812484/)

More carrots, not onions.

------
jlg23
No need for time travel here...

I currently live in the south of Morocco and this is exactly the kind of
advice I am given here constantly. My SO went through _months_ of dietary
restrictions based on such advice; got her to hospital 2 weeks ago and today
the lab results are in: bacterial infection. We are looking forward to the
first proper dinner in a very long time.

My personal highlight on local advice I was given: "Keeping a tortoise in your
house helps with asthma. My cousin has asthma and when it is really bad, he
comes back to his parents' house and after a few days it is much better!"
(That house is in a very small mountain village with very clean air, he lives
in a very big city full of cars and he does not dare to smoke anywhere in his
home village or his parents' house lest his parents see that.. go figure.)

------
andreygrehov
I'm at home for the past few days with a barely breathing nose, a sore throat
and a headache. Humanity is about to get people travel around the Moon, we
have self-driving cars and AI, but FFS(!), can someone create a pill that
would kill a common cold/allergies? It drives me nuts that we don't have a
solution for such a popular problem. I think I tried everything, but the
recovery time is always around 7 days no matter what you do.

~~~
ItsMe000001
Incidentally, I just wrote another (pretty long) reply mentioning just that.
Based on my own very unusual medical history I _suspect_ that _maybe_ you
should not want that. Of course I know nothing for sure at all, it's just that
observing my own healing process I was pretty much force to conclude that at
least _sometimes_ there _may be_ more to a cold than just "a cold", that it
may (can sometimes) have an effect that is not just "I happened to be sick for
a week", that it actually does something. Even if my own very personal reasons
and thoughts turn out to be wrong, what about training of the immune system
("training" is not a good word because what does it even mean, but there must
be _some_ feedback effect, surely)? I snot having any little issues at all for
decades really good? I think there are endless feedback loops and it's all a
lot more mixed and complex. I would be skeptical that such a magic pill would
be net positive.

~~~
andreygrehov
Yea, while I wish I a had magic pill, I have thought the exact same thoughts
just earlier today. But anyways, shoot me a message if you find that pill by
any chance ;)

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pella
Food Chemistry: "Anti-influenza A virus effects of fructan from Welsh onion
(Allium fistulosum L.)" ( 2012 )

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030881461...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030881461200653X)

------
lamarpye
It worked for Stanley and Zero at Camp Green Lake

