miraculous quintessence, and to appreciate, as I do now, that essential oils are not just powerful liquids in little glass bottles, but are representative of the individual plants and families from which they come, giving us their vibrant energy to help us to improve the quality of our lives.
Neither let us forget that plants such as these have, since life began on this planet, provided us with ‘medicines out of the earth’ as it tells us in the Old Testament. The amazing energy which some of us, including myself, call God, certainly completed his work incredibly well: a few moments spent thinking of the wonders of Nature and the intricate workings of the human body (and its ability to heal itself under normal circumstances) should be enough to convince us of the Power surrounding us. Would that we were all able to respect what we were given, treat it with care and use Nature’s gifts efficiently to maintain good health all our lives.
My hope is that this book will help people to respect essential oils and to use them with efficiency and love.
The Mists of Time
When researching the history of aromatherapy it is well to remember that the word itself was only brought into being in the early 20th century, and its strict meaning is a therapy using only the aromas (i.e. the essential oils) from plants, not the plants in their entirety (i.e. herbalism). Thus, much of the history connected with aromatherapy is in reality the history of the use of whole plants for medicinal use – essential oils, especially as we know them, came later. Indeed, there are cave paintings recognized as being many thousands of years old which may be interpreted as showing the general use of plants for medicinal purposes. Phytotherapy (meaning a therapy using plants) encompasses many different ways of doing this – from the use of the shoots as in gemmotherapy; parts, or the whole, of the adult plant as in herbal medicine, Bach Flower Remedies and homoeopathy to the use of aromatic plant extracts only, as in aromatherapy and its non-medicinal counterpart, perfumery.
The origins of aromatherapy are lost in the mists of time, long before records of any kind were kept, though it is believed that crude forms of distillation, which is the main method by which essential oils are obtained, were practised in Persia, Egypt and India thousands of years ago.
Aromatic extracts were, and still are, taken from plants in many different ways; expression, enfleurage, maceration, solvent extraction and the method par excellence for aromatherapy – distillation. Distillation was originally used mainly for the extraction of exotic flower waters, such as rose and orange flower; the amount of essential oil produced was hardly perceptible, as flowers contain very little essential oil.
No-one can say for sure whether the extraction and use of aromatic material began in India or Egypt – suffice it to say that in both these countries the use of plants was, for thousands of years, an important part of their culture.
The Indian Story
In India the use of plants and plant extracts as medicines has been continuous from at least 5,000 years ago up to the present day. Ayurvedic medicine, as it is called, is unique in this respect, and one of the oldest known books on plants, Vedas, is Indian. This book not only mentions many aromatic materials, such as sandalwood, ginger, myrrh, cinnamon and coriander but also indexes the various uses of these plants for religious and medicinal purposes. Ayurvedic medicine, however, remained mainly confined to the area where it developed until fairly recently.
The Influence of Egypt
More is known about the development of plant use in Egypt and the surrounding Mediterranean countries; in fact the Nile valley became known as the Cradle of Medicine and among the plants brought to this area were cedarwood, frankincense, myrrh and cinnamon.
In Egypt 5,000 years ago, perfumery was so closely linked with religion that each of the gods was allotted a particular fragrance, with which their statues were sometimes anointed. It was the priests who formulated the aromas and the Pharaohs of the time asked them for perfumes with which to anoint themselves in times of prayer, war and love.
The Egyptians mainly used fats or waxes to extract the fat- or wax-soluble molecules from the plant material, and jars containing these aromatic unguents feature on many of the paintings in the Egyptian tombs.
To prepare an essence from cedarwood for hygienic use, and also for embalming, wood was heated in a clay vessel and covered with a thick layer of wool. The wool gradually became saturated with cedarwood oil and condensed steam; it was then squeezed, and the two substances were left to separate out. Here we can see the crude beginnings of distillation.
The Egyptians used plants, aromatic resins and essential oils in the process of embalming (prevention of the rotting and decay of once living tissue). They successfully preserved animals as well as humans by this method and the priests forecasted (correctly, as it happened!) that these bodies would last for at least 3,000 years.
Egyptian knowledge with respect to antisepsis and hygiene, so effectively demonstrated by mummification, meant that their influence has been felt right up to this century. In ancient Egypt the architects were among the leading scientists and Imhotep (who lived around 2750 BC) helped to initiate Egyptian medicine. One town, designed by Akhnaton’s architect, was built with large square spaces for the burning of herbs, to keep the air germ-free. In the hot climate and with a lack of proper sanitation, the use of aromatic substances made life more pleasant – and safer.
Egypt and India were not the only countries to develop the use of aromas for religion and medicine (each country adapting them for their own particular requirement); the Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Jews, Chinese, Greeks, Romans and eventually the Christians all burnt resins in religious mystic and purification ceremonies.
Greece’s Contribution
About four or five hundred years before Christ, doctors from Greece and Crete visited the ‘Cradle of Medicine’ and as a result a medical school was set up on the Greek island of Cos, subsequently famous through the presence of Hippocrates (460–370 BC), who later became known as the ‘Father of Medicine’.
A Greek, Megallus, formulated a perfume called ‘Megaleion’ – well known throughout Greece, no doubt owing part of its success to the fact that it was also capable of healing wounds and reducing inflammation.
The Greeks made a vital contribution to the future study of plant medicine by classifying and indexing the knowledge they had gained from the Egyptians.
The Roman Contribution
Through the influence of both the Egyptians and the Greeks the Romans began to be more appreciative of perfumes and spices – in fact, the word ‘perfume’ comes from the Latin per fumum, meaning ‘through the smoke’ and refers to the burning of incense. The Bible cites many references to incense, together with the use of plant oils and ointments.
De Materia Medica, a renowned ancient book written by Dioscorides, a Roman who lived in the first century AD, listed in detail the properties of about 500 plants. This information proved to be so influential that the book was translated into several languages, including Persian, Hebrew and Arabic. Dioscorides also told how he had come across the story of the doctor whom tradition claimed had invented distillation. This doctor had apparently cooked some pears between two plates in the oven and when they cooled, had tasted the liquid formed
