The onion has never been just a garden-variety vegetable. Ancient Egyptians worshipped it, Mediterranean peoples believed it increased male virility, and Middle Easter cultures considered it an aphrodisiac. In England, it has been used to forecast the weather (thick skins mean a cold winter is coming, thin skins mean warm winter weather) and foretell the coming of a husband. Through the 19th century, folk healers prescribed onion poultices for drawing out fever and extracting the poison from snake bites. As late as the 1950s, English villagers hung half a cut onion in their homes to absorb infectious germs from the air. And one herb magazine recently recommended rubbing a bee sting with a slice of raw onion to alleviate the pain (a trick that works because the onion serves as counter-irritant to the bee sting). In our nose-y culture, the onion's odor makes it a repellent, rather than an attractive herb. But any way you slice it, the onion still has a mighty powerful personality!