Who Discovered Aromatherapy?
Smells affect everyone. How often have you found that a certain smell reminds you of something? It is an accepted fact that scents, or aromas go directly to the brain and affect emotion and well being.
There is a direct link between our subconscious minds and the sense of smell. A smell can trigger memories and make the associated emotions come back too.
We don’t consciously use our sense of smell very often. We seem to have developed a stronger sense of taste over the past thirty years, or so, and our eating habits have changed along with this. We don’t rely so much on how our food smells any more. Perhaps this is because we no longer need to check the freshness of food via our sense of smell. We have sell by dates, use by dates and refrigerators to help us with that.
The word ‘aromatherapy’ comes from the Greek words for ‘treatment by smell’.
Aromatherapy is the use of natural oils to improve mental, physical and emotional health and well being. It is not a new art and we are only just beginning to rediscover what ancient cultures before us knew so well.
The following brief history of medicine is based on an article from ‘New Scientist Magazine’ and it sums up exactly how the use of natural therapies has come full circle over the past 4000 years:
I have a stomach ache…
2000BC Eat this root.
AD1000 That root is heathen. ‘Say a prayer while you eat it’.
AD1850 That prayer is just superstition. Drink this potion.
AD1940 That potion is a magic potion and not effective. Swallow this pill.
AD1985 That pill doesn’t work. Take this antibiotic.
AD2000 That antibiotic is unnatural. Here, then, eat this root.
So, as we see above, the whole thing has gone round in a complete circle.
The term aromatherapy was first used in modern times by Rene Gattefosse in 1928, even though the therapy itself had been used in healing for thousands of years before that.
Gattefosse burnt his hand very badly while he was working in his lab. He put his hand into a container of lavender oil to cool it as this was the nearest thing he could find. To his amazement the hand healed very quickly and there was very little scarring and modern aromatherapy was born.
This amazing, wonderful smelling plants is perhaps the most well known of all aromatherapy plants. Lavender has some amazing properties. It is anti-septic, relaxing, uplifting, and much more. This is certainly the very first aroma that you should try out. An added bonus is that it is safe and gentle and most people can use it.