ONION. 527 
diminished. I would, therefore, suggest to those in charge of 
sanatoria the advisability of combining a daily run on a good 
motor-car, at a pace fully up to the legal limit, with the ordinary 
open-air treatment. The patients should be placed in front of 
the car, so as to avoid inspiring dust which may be thrown up 
by the wheels.” This may be taken to represent the gestation 
of Celsus, ‘up to date.” Sydney Smith declared about the 
Scotch friends who visited him in Somersetshire, and found its 
climate enervating, that “they were but Northern barbarians 
after all, who like to breathe their air raw; we civilized people 
of the South prefer it cooked.” 
ONION. (See Gartic). 
THE chemical constituents of an Onion-bulb are an acrid volatile 
oil, sulphur, phosphorus, alkaline earthy salts, phosphoric and 
acetic acids, phosphate, and citrate of lime, starch, sugar, and 
cellulose. Onion juice becomes of a rose-red colour when exposed 
to the air; it contains sugar, and will therefore ferment, even 
until yielding alcohol; the outer harder coats contain oxalate 
of lime. The Onion was long believed to specifically prevent 
the intoxicating effects of alcoholic drink, and to dispel its evil 
consequences. The large Spanish Onion is rich enough in 
nutrients to be regarded as a food. American growers have 
developed the same into the big, silvery-looking, gleaming white 
Onions on sale in the markets, which are still called Spanish, though 
they have in fact been no nearer Spain than the New England 
States, or New Jersey. These Onions are so mild and tender, 
that anyone can eat them when boiled, or stewed, without 
ill-effects ; they are said to induce a pleasant desire for sleep. 
A labourer in Spain will munch an Onion just as an English 
rustic does an apple. The Spanish Onion, grown largely in 
Portugal, cannot be acclimatized in England : it soon degenerates 
with us. Dishes which contain Onions in any quantity, or are 
strongly flavoured therewith, are said to be cooked “ala Soubise ;” 
the name being supposed to come from Prince Charles Soubise 
(1750), who was a famous epicure Field-marshal during the reign 
of Louis the Fourteenth of France. Another classical appellation 
of the Onion is “Cepe;” which schoolboys take advantage of 
for their puzzle line, “* Sape cepi cepe, sub sepe.” : 
Onions are helpful against constipation, by reason mainly of 
