From Doctrines to Science

The History of Aromatherapy

Aug 27, 2009

As herbalists translated Latin texts and combined them with their own practical knowledge of herbal lore, science too began to take an interest in medicinal plants.

In the late 16th to 17th century famous herbalists wrote massive tomes that brought literary recognition to local folklore by combining it with Latin texts. John Gerard’s Herbal (1579) drew heavily on folk wisdom. John Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum (1640) detailed 3,800 plants and their uses. Nicholas Culpeper’s The Complete Herbal (1651) became the herbalist’s companion with references even made to the planetary rulership of plants.

The Doctrine Of Signatures

During this period many physicians followed the ‘Doctrine of Signatures’, which decreed that the Creator left ‘clues’ as to which plants healed which parts of the body and which diseases, such as through shape and colour. For example, yellow plants could be used to treat jaundice or a plant with heart-shaped leaves may be good for the heart. None of which was true.

Scientific Experiment And Methodology

Through the 18th to 19th centuries most apothecaries had their own ‘stills’ and distributed essential oils and other potions to the masses. Scientists continued to refine the art of aromatherapy, becoming more and more interested in the individual chemical constituents of essential oils.1 An obsession with chemistry created a divide between the medical elite and traditional herbalists, as science sought to divide the common plant from its superior ingredients: ‘it was believed that the ‘active constituents’ could be extracted from the plant, or even better, synthetically derived’.2 For example, salix alba (willow) had long been used as a folk remedy for fever and rheumatism. By 1852, its active constituent salicylic acid was synthetically derived in a laboratory.

Towards the end of the 19th century it was discovered that certain essential oils had antimicrobial properties. This was of great interest to the scientific community, for it was now known that micro-organisms, and not dirt or odour, were responsible for disease. ‘Somebody drew attention to the low incidence of tuberculosis in the flower-growing districts of France ... it had been noticed that most of the workers who processed the flowers and herbs remained free of respiratory disease. The most likely cause of this was believed to have been the essential oils contained in these plants.’2

Scientists investigated the action of essential oils against other diseases such as glandular fever and yellow fever2 and in June 1910, something happened that would see the start of a new renaissance for aromatherapy.

Rene-Maurice Gattefosse

The term ‘aromatherapy’ - or French ‘aromatherapie’ - was coined in 1928 by French chemist Rene-Maurice Gattefosse. His interest in essential oils was sparked, literally, following an accidental laboratory explosion in which he burned his hand. To soothe the burn he instictively immersed his hand in the nearest liquid, which, again quite accidentally, was neat lavender oil.1 The chemist was impressed by the oil’s fast-working effects, speeding up the healing of the wound and preventing scarring.

Gattefosse’s discovery led to his study of the remarkable antibacterial, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties of essential oils, and his work contributed to the revitalisation of natural medicines that had largely been considered yesterday’s news.

References

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