Word: kohman
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...onion may be coming back into medical fashion. The Russians have discovered that onion and garlic vapors heal wounds (TIME, March 13, 1944). They called the germ-killing substance a phytoncide (meaning: a killer derived from plants). Now Food Chemist Edward F. Kohman has found that the active chemical agent in onions is a thioaldehyde, a close relative of the common antiseptic, formaldehyde. Chemist Kohman put raw onions through an ordinary household meat grinder, distilled the onion vapors, put them through a series of chemical tests. In a recent issue of Science, he reported finding about 1/20 of a gram...
...germ-killing thioaldehyde, Kohman said last week, probably does not exist as such in the onion. More likely, it is produced by the complicated enzyme activity that goes on in the onion when it is cut. Cooking would eliminate it completely; a boiled onion is no more good for a cold than a boiled turnip. But chewing a raw onion might help a cold (it would undoubtedly prevent spread of colds by keeping non-onion eaters away from the cold sufferer...