| Aromatherapy Aromatherapy is an alternative healing therapy that has its basis in massage with oils that the Romans and ancient Egyptians practiced several thousands of years ago. On the walls of the pyramids there is evidence of slaves applying oil to the pharaohs. The ancient wealthy Romans all ways started their day with a bath and a massage with scented oils. The modern day system of Aromatherapy began in the early part of the twentieth century with a French chemist named Gattefosse who while working in his families perfumery laboratory badly burned his arm. To cool it down he plunged his arm into a vat of lavender oil and over the next few days he noticed that it healed faster and without scarring. This prompted him to think that the lavender had some how had thing to do with it. Another French doctor called Dr Jean Valnet used essential oils idea as an aid to treating many different conditions. The results of which was published in 1964 as Aromatherapie. Valnet work was adopted by Madame Marguerite Maury in her beauty therapy salon. Giving each client a 'personal aromatic complex adapted to each persons temperament and health problem.' There are many different ways of using essential oils these include inhalation, bathing, burning,compresses, as well as massage. In Europe physicians can prescribe it for for oral use but this is not allowed in the UK. This is because many of the oils are toxic and if used to excess can prove fatal. The oils work by entering the body through the skin and olfactory senses. For those of you who think this is impossible, the skin is waterproof so how can something enter the body by this means. Try this test for yourself rub a cut clove of garlic on the sole of someone else's foot, wait 30mins then smell the the breath of the recipient. You should be able to smell the garlic on the breath even though it has not been eaten. Few things can move us so deeply or have so profound an impact on our psyche as the memories evoked by specific smells. A smell can take us back to childhood, conjure up a lost love or a sadness as real as the day we first experienced it. Smells invoke long term memory and make the past present as none of the other senses can. The most direct of all our senses, smell has an immediate impact, uninfluenced by language and unimpaired by the passage of time.Almost since human records began, odors perfume and the sense of smell have played a part in our evolution. Ancient history of Aromatherapy is shrouded in mystery. Anthropologists believe that primitive peoples burnt wood containing gum and resin as an incense. Eventually strongly scented plants and flowers were incorporated into oils or fats to anoint the body for ceremony and pleasure. In 3000BC when the Egyptians were learning to write and make bricks they were also importing vast quantities of myrrh, spices, gums and other fragrances these were probably the first items of commerce. In 1975 a Dr. Paolo Rovesti an archeologist found in a Taxila museum in Pakistan an unusual terra-cotta apparatus displayed alongside pottery perfume containers. It looked like a primitive still although the date of 3000BC would place it 4000 years earlier than the previously believed date of the invention of distillation. Later a vessel that was defiantly a still was discovered in Afghanistan the date of that was 2000BC. Even if essential oils were available at such an early date, most man made fragrances were still in the form of incense and ointment. During the reign of khufu the Egyptian Pharaoh who built the great pyramid [c2700 BC] papyrus manuscripts recorded the use of aromatic Herb’s, choice oils, perfume and temple incense and told of healing salves made of fragrant resins. African peoples have for centuries coated there skin with perfumed oils to protect themselves from the hot sun. This practice extended to the Mediterranean where athletes anointed themselves with unguents before competing in their chosen sport. When King Tutankhamen’s tomb was opened calcite pots filled with fat still smelled faintly of frankincense. The ancient Greeks world was filled with fragrance, the Greek word aromata describes incense, perfume, spices and aromatic medicines. By 7th century BC, Athens was a bustling merchant centre with hundreds of perfume shops. They traded strongly in herbs such as marjoram, lily, thyme, sage, aniseed, rose and iris infused into olive, almond, castor and linseed oils to make thick ointments. They were sold in small decorative, decorative pots similar to jars in Athens today. Aromatics was one of five section covered in Dioscorides famous Herbal. The first written description of a still in the western world is the one invented by Maria Prophetissima and described in ‘The Gold Making of Cleopatra’. Her design was initially used to distill essential oil but also proved useful for alcoholic beverages. Islam helped to spread the knowledge and appreciation of fragrance. Rosewater purified the Mosques, scented gloves, flavored sherbet and Turkish delight. The Arab Bin-Sina known in the west as Avicenna [980-1037] credited for improving distillation, wrote the famous Canon of Medicine. Essential oils were used extensively in his practice and one of his 100 books was devoted entirely to the rose. |