# Why garlic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 17, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954 "2013-04-17T17:30:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/21 "2013-04-18T16:10:21Z")
I’ve said it before: if I was plagued by vampires, I would wear a Matthew Lesco- style suit with crosses in lieu of dollar signs. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/22 "2013-04-18T17:21:42Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > According to Pliny, garlic and onions were invoked as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. “By the Living Horus, I swear your breath could knock Anubis flat!” ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/23 "2013-04-18T17:36:44Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Also, the wiffle hen saved his life after being shot multiple times. I don’t remember him being all that invulnerable prior to that episode. Man, Segar could milk a plot point though- I don’t know how many days Popeye, near death, lay in the hold of the ship rubbing the hen’s head. It took a real attention span to read comics in those days 😉 Now, be fair. Popeye was new, and readers were much more interested in what Castor Oyl and Ham Gravy were doing. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/24 "2013-04-18T19:07:14Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > The hell it does > > [Did vampires suffer from the disease porphyria — or not? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1321/did-vampires-suffer-from-the-disease-porphyria-or-not) You should take this topic more seriously. ---
**Author:** ![pjnlsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e8c25b/32.png) [@pjnlsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjnlsn)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/25 "2013-04-18T20:35:26Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > The hell it does > > [Did vampires suffer from the disease porphyria — or not? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1321/did-vampires-suffer-from-the-disease-porphyria-or-not) Yeah, ok, fine, whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/26 "2013-04-18T21:43:40Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Garlic is mentioned in the medical texts of Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, India \*and \*China. It’s long been believed to treat and prevent (or “ward off”) ailments of all sorts, and we know now that [it does have some antimicrobial and antiparasitic qualities](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10594976). And if you soak your bullets in it, your shooting victims die of horrible infections, or so the Mafia reportedly believed. Seems there’s a contradiction in there somewhere… Anyway, garlic is, like, fabulous-tasting stuff. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/27 "2013-04-18T22:30:55Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > And if you soak your bullets in it, your shooting victims die of horrible infections, or so the Mafia reportedly believed. A guy I knew who hung out with gangs in New York as a kid said they cut an X into the bullet and rubbed garlic into it, so that the wound would become infected. When he was in the Merchant Marine in WWII he tried to make an Asian prostitute lie sideways. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/28 "2013-04-23T15:37:09Z")
My wife was just telling me about a new book she’s reading about recent research in folklore that offered a compelling explanation for the “garlic wards off vampires” myth. To understand it you need to know two other things: 1. Smells and spirits are closely linked in many ancient cultures. Which makes sense, if you think about it. Smells are invisible and intangible. You can’t see them or touch them, but they’re clearly there. Good smells and bad smells are evidence of some sort of invisible good or bad presence. We can get an echo of this with the role that incense plays in modern religious rites. 2. Vampire myths are based on observations of exhumed bodies. Someone dies and you bury them. Then sometimes, by coincidence, bad things start happening. Hmmm … maybe bad things are happening because the person who died is unhappy? So you dig them up and the body has changed! It’s leaking liquid from the mouth and nose, it’s all swollen, and it smells horrible. It’s clearly possessed by a evil spirit and it’s swollen from feeding on blood. How do you solve this problem? You puncture the chest cavity so all the corruption/bad spirits come rushing out. And you chew on garlic while you’re doing it because the strong flavor overwhelms the stench. Garlic works against vampires because it prevents you from being infected by whatever invisible spirit caused the vampirism. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/29 "2013-04-23T15:54:49Z")
Aha, here’s the book: _[The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology and the Origins of European Dance](http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Goddesses-Folklore-Archaeology-European/dp/0393065367/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366732190&sr=1-1)_ Elizabeth Barber is married to Paul Barber, a folklorist who studies vampire myths: \* [Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality](http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Burial-Death-Folklore-Reality/dp/0300048599)\* ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2013, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954/30 "2013-04-23T21:45:43Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Aha, here’s the book: > > _[The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology and the Origins of European Dance](http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Goddesses-Folklore-Archaeology-European/dp/0393065367/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366732190&sr=1-1)_ > > Elizabeth Barber is married to Paul Barber, a folklorist who studies vampire myths: > \* > [Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality](http://www.amazon.com/Vampires-Burial-Death-Folklore-Reality/dp/0300048599)\* I mentioned Barber and his book in my post. Barber was one of those guys who pointed out that many of the bits of vampire lore that fits in with the porphyria theoryt are actually not part of the original vampire story, but based on later literary works (like _Dracula_). As i said, I don’t know of any examples of garlic being used as an anti-vampiric agent pre-Dracula. It’s not in Carmilla or Polidoei’s _the Vampyre_, or in Varney (at least not in the parts I’ve read. Has anyone read this book all the way through?). As I said above, it appears to be one of Stoker’s bits of “fakelore”. So , interestingly, I think the husband of the author you cite would be one of the people saying that, since it’s not based on authentic folklore, it wouldn;t itself be a legitimate interpretation. The stuff about vampirism being based on the conditions of exhumed dead bodies is straight from Barber, and I agree. In fact, I cited it in my own book, prauising Barber for the suggestion. He returned the compliment by thanking me in his next book. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-garlic/655954.md?page=1)