The Chemistry of Essential Oils. Lecture #1. Notes

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Dr. Robert Pappas
The Chemistry of Essential Oils
lecture from The University of Indiana

Text: The Chemistry of Essential Oils by David G. Williams (from $40 used to $200 new). This text is written for people with non-chemistry backgrounds.

Lecture #1, linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy5yy82bO6I&list=PLmrXJvxuEAjt56T0XBQtu4PEPOCrysKao



Limonene- chemical in citrus oils

History of Aromatics

Enflourage: extracting oil from plant using fatty oils like olive oil

Embalming of mummies with incense, gums, cedar wood, aromatic spices

MOVIE: perfumery, Dennis Hopper "interesting movie"

Chinese Culture 2700 B.C.
ginger, chammomile, ginger, opium, rose

20000 B.C. Aryuvedic culture (India). Sacred book: Veda, contained the first written ________. (37 min)

Sandalwood hydrosol is therapeutic. Otherwise, it's basically

Bible

Moses Ch:31 has a list of the blend of oils that Moses used for annointing like in a temple

to consecrate med into priesthood. Gifts to Jesus. Frank and Mhyrr resin was as valuable as gold then.

Herbal infusions and mascerations are  mentioned in the Bible, they are not distilled oils.

More history

spermicide-juniper was used

Hippocrates prescribed perfumed fumigations

800 A.D. Arabs. Al Hindi (Kindi) wrote a book. Chemistry of....

Book Canon of Medicine: a standard text until mid 16th century

Alchemists: changed lead to gold, had a system with four basic elements. they made many discoveries, including distillation
1 earth
2 air
3 fire
4 water

Quintessence -was thought to be oil because it was insoluable in water as discovered by alchemists

Bubonic plague. Robbers of dead bodies attempted to use "four thieves," four oils to protect against the bacteria that spread the plague. It worked!

Catnip will protect the best to protect at !% concentration, more effective than deet.
"citronella just masks co2)" The best mosquito repellent

Perfumers showed complete immunity during cholera outbreaks.
Essential oils for medicinal purposes became popular.

Grass in France is the mecca for perfumery.

Birth of modern aromatherapy: 1800s

french lavendar is usually cut with bulgarian lavender

1900's commonly used until 1950's,, then they became flavoring and used in the cosmetics, pharmaceuticals became more popular

Key people: Rene Edaphos (1928) coined the term aromatherapie. (spelled ie)  He was a French perfumer and chemist. There was an explosion and he was badly burned. A vat of lavendar was nearby, he used it to treat his burns. No sign of infection or scar appeared on his burn wounds. Antisceptic properties. He wrote a book. Used whole essential oils instead of fractionated oils.

(1954) Jean Valmay French guy, book Practice of Aromatherapy 1964.  affiliated with Aveda.

French tradition emcompasses more oral use. English tradition is more centered around massage and massage oil blends. Pappas thinks the States or "American" is more about inhalation.

1964 The Secret of Life and Youth Marguarite Maury. Started looking at emotional health.

A student in this lecture asked about osteopathy, and Dr. Pappas says Maury's work is not grouped with that because it's more "holistic," and is about treating the whole person.

I looked up osteopathy. Here is the definition: Osteopathy is a "whole person" philosophy of medicine, where doctors of osteopathic medicine (DOs) endorse an approach that treats the entire person, rather than a specific complaint. And here is a link where I found this definition.

Dr. Pappas conclusion: take charge of this on your own health and get away from the method of "wait til I'm sick and then go to the doctor."