Month of September 2022: Essential Oils (Health)

“The Practice of Aromatherapy: A Classic Compendium of Plant Medicines & Their Healing Properties” by (1964 in France; 1982 in English; 1990 edition) 279 pages.

This book is considered a classic among aromatherapy books. It provides a segue, in very scientific terms, and at times very hard to understand, from many early, traditional cures and use of plant essences (essential oils) compared to modern use of synthetic pharmaceuticals up until the publication of this book, 1964. It is mainly focused on early research of 1930’s through early part of 1960’s, with the first book on essential oils, Aromathérapie”, published in 1937 by René-Maurice Gattefossé.

The author doesn’t discount the most ridiculous sounding cures that have worked in the past just because we don’t know how or why something worked. If it worked and cured an affliction, he felt it should be recorded and counted.

This is not a fun read at all, but it did answer my one question about aromatherapy, in particular, about diffusing essential oils in a diffuser to purify the air: Does it REALLY work?

And here’s the answer…

On January 7, 1963, Professor Griffin (Director of the French Police Toxicology Lab and member of the Academy of Pharmacy and of the Higher Council for Hygiene in Paris) studied the antiseptic effect of the air when a blended essence of oils was sprayed into the air. He used a blend of pine, thyme, peppermint, lavender, rosemary, cloves and cinnamon essential oils.

Griffin put Petri dishes in a room, out in the open for 24 hours, before spraying the room with the essential oil blend and allowed whatever organisms were in the air to fall and settle on the Petri dishes. The germs were then counted. A total of 210 colonies of microscopic flora were recorded, of which 12 were molds and 8 were staphylococci.

He then sprayed the room, and after 15 minutes, the open dishes showed only 14 colonies with 4 molds and no staphylococci; after 30 minutes the dishes had only 4 colonies and no mold and no staphylococci.

The air was considerably disinfected, which goes to show that essential oils should definitely be practiced and diffused in sick rooms, or even as a preventative, as long as you know no one has any sensitivities to any components of the essential oils. Otherwise, use a small heated lamp that will heat the oil and allow the essence to escape naturally. (p. 37)

The author used a couple of drops of each: thyme, lavender, pine and eucalyptus essential oils, on a daily basis in a heated lamp with a crucible above it. (p. 38) NOTE: Where can I find one of these?

This book is divided up, and not into this particular order, into a bit of history on the essence of plants, some case histories (which I didn’t find very interesting or useful because the stories were so general), and an assortment of indexes that take up a huge portion of the book.

If you want to know what a particular oil is used for and a few basic ways to use it, then go to the alphabetical listing of oils. Here, he has provided a few different methods of use for each oil and a few recipes for each, but they are all in grams, and they aren’t very specific. Note that not all essential oils we are using today are included in the authors list.

Then there is a therapeutic index. You can do a reverse search. Find your health problem and you’ll find a list of oils you can use.

There is an oils property index. For example, if you are looking for an anti-inflammatory, then go to the word anti-inflammatory, and a list of oils would be provided for you to choose from. ( )