Aromatherapy: In the Beginning

    Aromatherapy: In the Beginning

      The use of essential oils is as old as antiquity.

       Egyptians  used essential oils for embalming.   

       Greeks attributed their sweet smell to the Gods.    

       Babylonians perfumed the mortar their temples 
      were built with.

Aromatherapy as we know it hails from 1920.

Rene-Maurice Gattefosse coined the term. Working as a chemist, he received a 3 ^rd degree lab burn to his hand & forearm.  Thinking it to be water, he plunged his hand into a vat of lavender oil.  The pain subsided within a few minutes. He continued applying lavender and his arm healed with out blisters or scarring.

He started investigating essential oils & found them to have enormous healing properties.  He shared his work with friend Dr. Jean Valnet, a medical doctor living in Paris.  Valnet started using essential oils in WW2 when he ran out of antibiotics. He found the oils were able to reduce & even avert infection, reducing pain and saving lives.

(My Uncle George always told the story of receiving 3rd degree burns over his entire back on the battle field.   The supply of pain killers and anti-biotics had been exhausted.  The medic liberally covered the back with a "flower oil" and he healed without pain or scarring).

News of success spread like wild fire and the multi million dollar international mega industry we have today was born.