Botanical characteristic. Lily family. Perennial plant with a large flattened-spherical or oblong bulb, covered with yellow-red scales. Leaves are cylindrical, hollow; basal flowers are collected in an umbrella. The flowers are whitish, on long stalks. All parts of the plant have a specific taste and pungent smell. Blooms in June – August. The fruits ripen in September.
Spreading. As a vegetable crop, onions are cultivated everywhere in vegetable gardens and vegetable areas.
Medicinal raw materials. Bulbs, which are harvested in the fall after the leaves and flower arrows have dried, have medicinal value.
Chemical composition. Bulbs contain essential oil (causes a sharp smell and taste, irritates the mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract and eyes), sugars (glucose, fructose, maltose and sucrose), inulin, phytin, vitamins C and B1, (up to 10 mg%), carotene – provitamin A (60 mg%), flavonoid quarcetin, phytoncides, etc. The leaves (feather) contain essential oil, ascorbic acid (20 mg%), vitamin B2 (50 mg%), carotene (4 mg%), citric and malic acid, sugar, etc.
pharmacological properties. Onion has an antimicrobial effect, stimulates appetite, activates the secretory-motor activity of the organs of the gastrointestinal tract and thereby improves digestion and promotes better absorption of nutrients by the body, delays fermentation and putrefactive processes in the intestine, enhances cardiac activity, has a mild diuretic and laxative effect, prevents the development of atherosclerosis.
Application. As a remedy, onion has been known since ancient times and to this day it is widely used in folk veterinary medicine in various countries.
Onion and its products are administered orally in the form of tincture, porridge, juice with water to improve the activity of the digestive organs and stimulate appetite, to enhance the contractile function of the proventriculus in case of their hypotension, with hypotension and atony of the intestine, to inhibit putrefactive and fermentation processes in the intestine, etc.
With all kinds of functional disorders of the gastrointestinal tract in calves, N. V. Noskov recommends giving an onion infusion of the following preparation. First, 2 liters of a 0.85% sodium chloride solution are prepared in fresh boiled water, which is poured into a clean bottle with a capacity of 2.5-3 liters. A siphon with rubber tubes and clamps is passed through the cork of the bottle. Then 200 g of peeled benign onions are quickly ground on a grater into a fine gruel and added to a bottle with a solution. The mixture is shaken for several minutes. To prevent the evaporation of active volatile substances (phytoncides), 50-100 ml of vegetable oil is added to the bottle along the wall, covering the entire surface of the liquid with it. Such an infusion can be consumed no more than 2 days, sucking up the liquid only through a siphon and immediately giving sick calves 3-5 ml per 1 kg of body weight 5 times in a row every hour. During this period, the calves remain hungry. In the subsequent infusion is given 30 minutes before feeding.
A 5% decoction is prepared from onion peel, which is fed to calves in 150-300 ml every hour 4-6 times. At this time, the calves remain hungry, and then they drink colostrum or milk. The decoction is consumed every day of preparation. Such a decoction has good bacteriostatic properties in relation to microbes of the coliparatyphoid group, staphylococci, etc.
Fresh gruel from onion or juice is used to treat wounds, burns, frostbite, accelerate the maturation of abscesses. The prepared onion gruel is diluted 1:50-1:100 with isotonic sodium chloride solution, sterile gauze wipes or tampons are impregnated with it and applied to the wound. To prevent the evaporation of phytoncides, the wound is covered with a protective bandage. Onion doses inside: cattle 30-60 g, small 15-30 g.
From ready-made onion products, our pharmaceutical industry produces allilchep – an alcohol tincture of onions, used to improve digestion, with atony of the proventriculus and intestines. Doses inside: cattle 20-30 ml, sheep 5-15, dogs 1-3, piglets 0.1-0.2 ml per 1 kg of body weight.