What Does Garlic Smell Like?

Abstract

Garlic (Allium sativum) is an old cultivated plant that has been used by man for millennia for its extraordinary taste and great healing power [1]. The earliest records of the use of garlic come from Egypt. The ancient Egyptians were well aware of its healing properties and ate garlic in large quantities. A Papyrus from 1600 BC depicts a strike by workers working on the construction of the pyramid, protesting that they were not given garlic. The well-known Ebers papyrus, a collection of medical prescriptions 3500 years old, mentions the use of garlic in many diagnoses such as heart weakness, headache, intestinal parasites, eczema, gynecological problems, etc. [2]. The ancient Greeks and Romans also highly valued garlic as a medicinal vegetable. They were convinced that garlic cures coughs and clears the lungs of phlegm and pus. Doctors in China and India consider garlic to be a versatile medicine, treating everything with it: from colds to "aging" [3]. Garlic was first subjected to scientific investigation by Louis Pasteur in the mid-19th century when he studied its bactericidal effects [4]. Since then, garlic has been the subject of constant interest for many researchers.