[_red]

Anecdotal. But when I was young I suffered from intense ear-aches. Eventually my Mom capitulated to my Grandmothers suggestion and put garlic cloves in olive oil and poured into my ear. Within a few hours of treatment those ear-aches would disappear completely.

Years later I researched and found out about allicin and its presence in freshly crushed garlic.

In fact there are now theories that many of the cooking practices of "marinating in crushed garlic" was just as much to do about anti-bacterial effects as culinary.

[fpgaminer]

> put garlic cloves in olive oil and poured into my ear.

While not applicable to your specific use, I'll point out for general knowledge that garlic + olive oil can lead to the growth of Clostridium botulinum, aka the Botulism causing bacteria. This more commonly occurs when making garlic infused olive oil, since the botulinum needs time to grow. Hence why it probably didn't matter for your grandmother's usage; not enough time for the concoction to become dangerous. But this is one of those strange facts that it's good know, in case someone decides to make homemade infused olive oil for their meals.

[e12e]

Interesting - wasn't aware of that. I wonder how hardy those spores are -- that is, if they're as much of a problem with dried garlic, as with fresh?

One easy options seems to be to opt for garlic vinegar instead, as the vinegar is acidic, and doesn't allow the bacteria to thrive?

http://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-garlic-infused...

edit, see also: http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/uc_davis/uc_davis_garlic.p...

[shinryuu]

Good to know. Otherwise crushing garlic in onion is a very time-efficient when you're doing food :). But perhaps if you heat it it's not much of a problem.

[xeromal]

Isn't that what happens to infants when fed honey?

[bazzargh]

Olive oil is still often used to clean out ear wax (which does cause intense ear aches). Are you sure it was the garlic and not the oil?

See eg http://www.uhs.nhs.uk/ourservices/ear,noseandthroat/audiolog... (for a non-woo, non-commercial reference).

In fact this used to be pretty much the only use for olive oil in the UK - before the mid-1950s, 'continental' cookery was unusual and olive oil was generally unavailable except through a pharmacist as an ear cleaner. http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Food-in-Britain-in-the-...

[vixen99]

It does have some anti-microbial action but it's known that the glycosinolates (found in onion family but also many other vegetables) have definitive antibacterial properties.

[Xeoncross]

Yes, even if previous generations did not have the wealth of knowledge we now possess - It's not that they were all stupid. Hundreds of years ago there wasn't much other choice than to use your surroundings to survive. No pharmacy around there.

[a_c_s]

The key difference is that they didn't have a good mechanism for sifting the wheat from the chaff: in addition to doing some things that are actually helpful, some things that seemed to work are actually harmful/dangerous (eg. bloodletting).

[Xeoncross]

It's funny that we are still doing the same thing. Chemotherapy is hoping that we kill the cancer before we kill the body.

It's like high-tech bloodletting with more research and a better track record.

[a_c_s]

Chemotherapy is a research-backed approach that has been constantly refined since it was first used roughly 100 years ago.

Bloodletting is a theory-based approach and was, as far as we know, in continuous use for thousands of years despite being ineffective for almost every single condition.

The key difference is precisely the research and constant refinement, not any particular mechanism of action.

[a8da6b0c91d]

Bloodletting is not ineffective at all. If you have a dangerous bacterial infection, and have no sulfa drugs and no modern antibiotics, bloodletting is a good idea. You are reducing iron availability. Human tissue can cope with low iron. Bacteria need quite a bit of it critically to reproduce.

[FreeFull]

On the other hand, you're weakening your patient's body in a way that likely isn't good for their immune system.

[Xeoncross]

In theory Chemotherapy is a research-backed approach. In practice it is simply the best we have for those that reject proper nutrition and exercise.

For example, Colon cancer has a 1.8% success rate with Chemotherapy and Lung cancer has a 1% success rate.

That is pretty abysmal research.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15630849

[tsotha]

>In theory Chemotherapy is a research-backed approach. In practice it is simply the best we have for those that reject proper nutrition and exercise.

Cancer is the result of DNA damage, which you can get from viruses, chemicals (of all types), sunlight, and even background radiation. Plus, I suspect, random errors in DNA transcription. That's why your body has multiple overlapping systems to detect and destroy cancerous cells.

The idea you'll never get cancer if you just eat right and exercise is a fool's hope - if you don't die of something else first you'll get cancer.

And yes, chemo isn't ideal, but it will normally stretch your life out some. It's certainly not the best we have in all cases - there are targeted drugs for some cancers now.

[task_queue]

What kinds of cancer does proper nutrition and exercise cure?

[DubiousPusher]

This is not at all the same thing. Ancient medicine was pre-scientific method and therefore they were throwing things at the wall and seeing what would stick with no eye to all the problems of informal research (confirmation bias, survivor's bias, correlation!=causation, etc.)

Modern Chemotherapy isn't someone just presuming something works through informal testing, void of any understanding of the fundamental mechanism by which it works.

It is a necessary evil. Chemotherapy is more akin to amputation of irretrievable mortified flesh than to blood letting.

[WalterBright]

Medicine did not start advancing rapidly until around 1800 when people first started using statistics to determine what worked and what didn't, rather than anecdotal evidence.

[Potando]

Not stupid, but they either didn't understand or relied on the placebo effect and didn't perform experiments that were actually useful at distinguishing helpful from harmful or useless medicines - AND communicate that information to others. When an ancient remedy turns out to be useful, it's not useful until we rediscover that it actually works. The idea of science and sorting out mysticism from reality is fairly new in most of the world. In China, doctors in public hospitals still prescribe untested herbal remedies and diagnose diseases without any idea of the effectiveness of what they're doing. Patients just trust authority, tradition and popular belief. You could argue that the same is true to some extent in the west today too - see general "have some antibiotics" prescriptions, and cough and cold medicine.

[unics]

Forgetting that Chemists and Apothecaries existed hundreds of years ago or did I mis-interpret?

[vacri]

It's worth noting that not all ye olde home remedies are unduly ignored. In my great-grandmother's time, kerosene was seen as a wonder drug, put on everything to heal it. They even once put it in a baby's eyes to cure blindness.