aromatherapy
We call "aromatherapy" a 90ish year old modern term of art used to describe a several thousand year old practice. In the early 1920s, a French perfume chemist, Rene Maurice Gattefosse, injured himself while working in his laboratory. There was an explosion and he burned part of his upper extremity. He placed the burned hand into a vat of what he mistakenly thought was water. The vat really contained the essential oil of Lavender, from the Lavender flower. Several hours later, Gattefosse did not have any residual injuries from the burn. Gattefosse continued to experiment with essential oils from a medicinal standpoint and by 1928 he had coined the term "aromatherapie".
A friend of Gattefosse, Dr. Jean Valnet, a French medical doctor, used lavender oil which Gattefosse provided him while serving as an army surgeon. Amazingly, Valnet, by using essential oils, was able to control infection from developing as a result of the war wounds. He was able to save many limbs which would otherwise have been amputated as a result of infections leading to gangrene. After the war, Valnet went to work at a psychiatric hospital, and continued to use essential oils in the treatment of his psychiatric patients. Again, he reports having great success in the use of essential oils. Gattefosse and Valnet were not the only ones who were experimenting with, or using, essential oils.
In the 1990's, the National Institutes of Health, Office of Alternative Medicine was created. It has funded several studies in the United States involving the use of essential oils. The one with which we are most familiar is: Aromatherapy Positively Affects Mood, EEG Patterns of Alertness and Math Computations. It was conducted by the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami, School of Medicine and is published in the International Journal of Neuroscience.
The healing energies of plants have been used for several thousand years. Originally, plants were burned and those in close proximity of the smoke most likely experienced their aromatic effects. Today, many people experience the pleasing fragrances of incense. Plants were also utilized while in their natural form (herbs) as they are today. In 900 BC, the Arabian physician, Avicenna, began to utilize distillation as a means of obtaining plant essences from different plants. His Canon of Medicine was a standard reference for the medicinal use of plants and essential oils. Modern research is confirming that the use of essential oils obtained from plants helps with the healing process and the sophisticated diagnostic medical equipment now available suggests the methodology behind the healing process.
One of the two ways that aromatherapy or essential oils are accepted into the body is through inhalation. The other is through skin absorption. Recent studies indicate that when a person breathes in an odorant molecule (the minute molecule containing the particular fragrance of the substance being breathed) it passes by a patch of cells called the olfactory epithelium. This patch of cells is located at the very top of the nasal cavity, horizontally positioned bilaterally, and just below the level of the eyes. The olfactory epithelium is only a few centimeters square and contains about five (5) million olfactory neurons, plus their supporting cells and stem cells. Each olfactory neuron in the epithelium is topped by at least 10 hair-like cilia that protrude into a bath of mucous at the cell surface. Each olfactory neuron in the nose has a long fiber or axon that pokes through a tiny opening in the bone above it, the cribriform plate, to make a connection, or synapse, with other neurons. This synapse actually forms in the olfactory bulb, a part of the brain. It is a large, knob-like structure in animals with an acute sense of smell but dwindles in size as the ability to smell decreases.
Anatomical studies show that signals from the olfactory cells in the nose reach the olfactory area of the cortex after only a single relay in the olfactory bulb. The olfactory cortex, in turn, connects directly with a key structure called the hypothalamus, which controls sexual and maternal behavior. The hypothalamus is also the control center for the pituitary gland, which secretes several important hormones. The limbic system, together with the hypothalamus, controls hunger, thirst, emotional reactions, and biological rhythms. In addition, it coordinates complex activities requiring a sequence of performance steps. The limbic system consists of the Cingulate Cortex, the Septal area, and the Hippocampi.
After the odorant molecule passes by the olfactory epithelium, if it is from an essential oil, it continues along with the air that is transporting it, to the lungs where it travels on its journey to one of the two primary bronchi of the lungs. From here it continues to travel through the smaller passages until it reaches the alveolar ducts through which it passes to enter the blood stream for circulation to other parts of the body, until it is excreted through either exhalation, the urine, or the feces.
Because of the small molecular size of essential oils and the fact that they dissolve easily in fatty substances, essential oils when applied topically to the body will be absorbed into the skin and then into the blood stream having passed through the capillaries. Once inside the blood stream, they can travel to other parts of the body until they are excreted in the same manner as if they were inhaled.