In a message dated 11/15/2002 1:23:05 AM Mountain Standard Time, NJ-MEMORIES-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: > My mother put the onions on the soles of our feet and on our chests when we > had a fever. It was supposed to draw it out. LOL When I was a year I got > pneumonia and had to go to the hospital. When the doctor saw the onions he > asked how they knew I was done. > Anybody want to read about cooked onions being used that way, read Catherine Marshall's novel "Christy." It came out back in the late 1960s or 1970s. The reason they worked the way they did is that the irritation of the onions would open out blood vessels and bring an improved blood supply to the area, and that would thin out the chest secretions and make them easier to cough up. They were the old-fashioned equivalent of an expectorant like Robitussin. Doris in Colorado (Up2Nutrix@aol.com) "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -- Jim Elliot, missionary and martyr