Another year almost past, and yet I feel stuck still in February.  I never really seem to have got going this year or, if I did, I didn’t notice it. Perhaps it is because we have taken no break, but I doubt it.  I think it far more likely that the joy of running one’s own business is being slowly eroded by increasing legislation and mounting paperwork.  Compliance is the name of the game, and it is real drudgery.

Few have heard of Fra Luca Pacioli, the inventor of  double-entry book-keeping; but he has probably had much more influence on human life than has Dante or Michelangelo. I agree!

Meanwhile the phones begin to jangle with increasing urgency, and half the staff fail to turn up this morning: it must be the festive season. Oh my goodness, here we go again.  Why is it that coughs, colds, flu, stomach bugs, and even scarlatina this time, always strike at our busiest time?  I have visions that I shall be answering angry calls up to “last knockings” on Christmas Eve.

Ah! All may not be lost, as the coughing and sneezing cohort marches in from the doctor’s surgery: essential oils obviously cannot cure everything! What a splendid bunch. Without them nothing would be possible.  My sincere thanks to wife Jan, son Justin, Jade, Rebecca, Karla, David, Duncan, Genine, Lisa, Ella and Robin for another year of  unwavering support.  It is much appreciated.

Also, although strictly not a member of the team as he is an independent operator (but you would be hard-pressed to know it, judging from the amount of our coffee he gets through!), it would be incorrect to overlook the tremendous support and efforts of ‘Dr. Cream’.  Thanks Mark!

And, of course, a huge thank you to YOU.

What a difference a letter makes!
I believe that Emperor Charles V (1500-58) used to claim....To God I speak Spanish, to women Italian, to men French, and to my horse - German.  Well, be that as it may, I do wonder how he would have coped with Japanese.

Following upon my piece about Hon, Ho and Yu in last month’s Newsletter, I received a somewhat humiliating letter from Andrea Good in Hokkaido, Japan.....Re: Kusonoki - Cinnamomum camphora.....Please check the spelling on this, in Japan the correct spelling is Kusunoki.....Otherwise it would mean “Tree of Excrement” and I wouldn’t be caught dead using the essential oil of that tree!

Of course she is absolutely correct. Mea culpa! I fear that my far-too-fat typing digit hit the wrong key. My abject apologies, and genuine thanks to Andrea for scrutinizing so carefully my scribblings.

An aromatherapist discusses damiana.
Were you being disingenuous when you said you didn’t quite know why it [damiana] was so popular with therapists? e-mailed Victoria Plum, my mentor on aromatherapy matters. In fact I was not: I simply know little about it.  Victoria explains.

The answer, apart from the fact that it is taught at the Tisserand Institute where the teachers are convinced of its efficacy and spread passion for it amongst their students, she thinks derives from its herbal use.  Although she admits that whole herbal use into aromatherapy use may not be completely accurate, it is her experience that it is, as in herbal use, a tonic and a restorative to the nervous system. She suspects that its reputation as an “aphrodisiac”may have more to do with its effect on a more general sense of well-being.

Extrapolating much from its herbal use as a urinary antiseptic, a diuretic, and a stimilant and restorative where there is anxiety and depression she believes that it is used rather like Ginseng, particularly where clients are suffering from adrenal exhaustion due to long-term stress.  She deduces from this that, if it were viewed in the light of traditional Chinese Medicine, it would be regarded as a kidney tonic.

Although she would certainly use it as a regulator of the menstrual cycle, particularly where there is a stress-linked disruption of the cycle, and for anxiety/depression premenstrually and menopausally, she uses it without regard to gender as a tonic/restorative for ‘adrenal exhaustion’ or, as she puts it, where clients have reached such a state of “running on empty”that they have almost forgotten how to listen to their bodies rest and restore.  

Clients seem to experience the oil as being very grounding, calming and strengthening. However, as Victoria readily admits, how much this has to do with her own passionate conviction she does not know.  She suspects, like many practitioners, that her own strong beliefs in the specific actions of oils, shared with clients who have a strong trust in her, have much to do with the success of her treatments. 

Whilst she acknowledges willingly that the translation of herbal use into aromatherapy use may not bear pharmacological investigation, like many aromatherapists she regards “placebo” as her best friend: without saying an aromatherapy massage with damiana will ease whatever, she does say that this has been used herbally for whatever and that’s why I should like to use it with you today.  If clients respond positively to the smell of damiana, she finds that many will feel it strong and calming.

In summary, she uses it where there is a general sense of fatigue, where vital energy is low, for LIFE - whether that affects appetite for sex or food. She uses it to bring clients more into their bodies, to encourage them to “be here”.  She comments: This is very much an instinctive response to the oil, and it’s possible that this is all in my mind.  Unfortunately, as it is so terribly hard to source for us, I doubt there’s much chance for aromatherapists as a group to compare and contrast how we use it.  I’d be really interested to know who is using it and for what and with whom. If this spurs you on to try and find a source, so much the better!

That’s me under the gun: I had better get cracking!  Many thanks Victoria, always a source of inspiration.  

Damiana - The myth explored.
Duly uplifted, I resolved to find out more about the Mexican shrub Turnera diffusa Willd. var. aphrodisiaca (L.F. Ward) Urb., from the leaves of which damiana is produced.

Apparently it was introduced into American medicine in the autumn of 1874 by a druggist from Washington, who sold eight-ounce bottles of the tincture for $2 each [American Journal of Pharmacy 47: 426-427, 1875].  The product was promoted as a powerful aphrodisiac “to improve the sexual ability of the enfeebled and aged.” It was said to have a specific effect on all the organs of the pelvis and to give “increased tone and activity to all the secretions in that vicinity.”

Stories of Mexican men who had sired children at very advanced ages were circulated to substantiate these claims [Maisch, J.M. American Journal of Pharmacy 47: 380-381, 1875]. However, within a very short time, the reported activities of the drug were recognized as fraudulent [Ibid., 429-430], but this seems to have diminished little damiana’s reputation over the years. For those who believe in it, it is still the business.

Nevertheless I was interested to read that any physiological activity in various proprietary damiana preparations marketed at that time was actually due to the presence of other drugs, such as coca (Erythroxylum spp.) and nux vomica (Strychnos nux-vomica), and to a high alcoholic content, usually about 50% [Nostrums and Quackery, Second Edition, Volume 1. American Medical Association, Chicago, Illinois, 1912, p. 537]. What a cocktail!

Today, I understand that damiana liqueurs, produced in Mexico and subtly advertised as aphrodisiacs, contain only minute quantities of the drug.  The amount is sufficient, however, to give these beverages a distinctive flavour.  I have just taken a sip of our damiana extract and its taste is very reminiscent of some black, bead-like, “sweets” that I used to suck when I was a small boy. I hadn’t thought about them again until today.

When I was nine!
Maybe because food rationing was still in place, or perhaps they didn’t want us to have them anyway, it was very difficult to get hold of real sweets at school and I had to make do with whatever I could lay my hands on.  Although somewhat hazardous because a caning was the certain consequence, I used to take advantage of those occasions when sport was off, and a healthy walk was the order of the day, to slip the slow-moving crocodile, under the pretence of tying my shoelace, and duck furtively into the chemist’s shop for my ‘fix’ of Ovaltine or Horlicks tablets. However, on one occasion, the collaborating pharmacist was unable to fulfil my request and instead proffered a tin of his choice in exchange for my tendered six pennies.  Time being of the essence, I grabbed the goods and legged it.

It was only when I was within the comparative security of the dormitory that I was able to examine my fortuitous purchase. Upon removing the lid, I was desolated to discover that this was no tin with which I was familiar.  Unlike the traditional Ovaltine or Horlicks containers, which doubled so well as safe deposits for my prized possessions, this had only a small hole through which tumbled the black beads. Gingerly, I tried one. Ugh! It was like nothing I had tasted before. Another, and another, and another followed.  Not so bad. I offered them to others, shrewdly in return for Ovaltine and Horlicks.  By the end of that term half the school was addicted to them, and the pharmacist and I had quite a racket going!  What were they?

The herbal use of damiana.
Writing in 1904 [The Pharmaceutical Review 22: 126-131], pharmacist John Uri Lloyd best captured damiana’s position in herbal medicine: Damiana is a homely, domestic remedy, innocent of the attributes under which, in American medicine, it has, for a quarter of a century, been forced to masquerade.  The masquerade has now continued for more than a century.

Pick up any good reference book on the subject, turn first to damiana and then to herbal use. Damiana is stated to possess antidepressant, thymoleptic, mild purgative, stomachic, and reputedly aphrodisiac properties [Braun, J.K. and Malone, M.H. Legal highs. Clin. Toxicol. 1978; 12: 1-31]. It has been used for depression, nervous dyspepsia, atonic constipation, and specifically for anxiety neurosis with a predominant sexual factor [Potter’s New Cyclopedia of Botanical Drugs and Preparations (1988); British Herbal Pharmacopoeia 1990, Vol. 1; British Herbal Compendium, Vol. 1 (1992)]. 

Nevertheless there is limited chemical information available on damiana. There has been little documented evidence to justify the herbal uses, and the reputation of damiana as an aphrodisiac has never been proven.

However I did find one reference [Westendorf, J. Carito-In-vitro-Untersuchungen zum Nachweis spasmolytischer und kontraktiler Einflüsse. Therapiewoche 1982; 32: 6291-7] which reported a herbal preparation containing damiana as one of the ingredients to have a favourable effect on the symptoms of irritable bladder associated with functional and neurohormonal disorders, and on bacterial bladder infections.

Arbutin, a phenolic glycoside, is stated to be responsible for the urinary antiseptic properties of damiana, but the arbutin content is much less than that quoted for uva-ursi (0.7% and 5 to 18%, respectively). The chemistry of uva-ursi (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng) is well documented with hydroquinone derivatives, especially arbutin, identified as the major active ingredients. Documented pharmacological actions justfy the herbal use of uva-ursi as a urinary antiseptic.

Nonetheless high doses of arbutin (e.g. 1g) are considered to be toxic, although the amount documented for damiana is probably too low to warrant concerns over safety. However tetanus-like convulsions and paroxysms resulting in symptoms similar to those of rabies or strychnine poisoning have been described in one individual following the ingestion of about 200ml damiana extract [normal dose is 2 - 4ml]; cyanide poisoning was considered to be a possible cause. I could find no other reported side-effects of damiana, but most references suggest that excessive doses should be avoided because of the presence of cyanogenetic glycosides (Tetraphyllin B) and arbutin. There is also some evidence that damiana may interfere with existing hypoglycaemic therapy [Perez, R.M. et al. A study of the hypoglycaemic effect of some Mexican plants. J. Ethnopharmacol. 1984; 12: 253-62].

As the safety of damiana has not been established, and in view of the lack of toxicity data and possible cyanogenetic constituents, doses greatly exceeding amounts used in food should not be taken during pregnancy or lactation.

That’s me done on damiana for at least the next ten years, I hope!

Hints for healing hedgehogs.
After the recent violent winds, I have been spending much time raking up the leaves which currently shroud much of the garden. It is a back-breaking task, for I take especial care to hand-sift every pile in case I injure my resident hedgehogs.

Hedgehogs play an important part in the natural and cultural heritage of many countries. Everyone knows them, everyone - or almost everyone - loves them. Their extinction as a species would mean losing a valuable part of our history.  Their very familiarity deceives us into taking their continued survival for granted. Yet they are under threat, not from predators, but from an assortment of manmade problems, against which they have little or no defence. November can be an alarming month for them. Snuggled up tight in inviting piles of leaves and debris, many are burned alive on Bonfire Night. 

Hedgehogs fill an important niche in the ecosystem and are valuable friends to farmers and gardeners because of their role in keeping populations of insects and molluscs in check. Adult hedgehogs can eat almost half their body weight (1.8kg/4lb) of slugs, snails and caterpillars in a day.
 
However, despite all care, hedgehogs can occasionally become somewhat out of sorts.  One of the difficulties in treating wildlife with conventional veterinary drugs is that they have side-effects, which are not always known. What is safe for one species is not necessarily safe for another.  And since such drugs will have been tested on a species physiologically different from any wild species, it makes the prescribing of drugs to wildlife a process of trial and error.

By contrast, alternative therapies can probably be given to any species of wildlife safely, with no side-effects.  Also the ill effects of veterinary drugs can be considerably reduced by the concurrent use of appropriate therapy, homoeopathy for example.

Some years ago I remember listening to Lenni Sykes, an experienced homoeopath and healer with a background in veterinary nursing, speak about her experiences at the Welsh Hedgehog Hospital (WHH). Founded in 1986 by Jane Durrant to cure and rehabilitate sick, orphaned, and injured hedgehogs, the hospital had a particularly high success rate with its patients.

Although homoeopathy was the principal complementary therapy used, there were others that they found both safe and successful: for example, crystal healing.  Apparently the hedgehogs seem to sense when a crystal is good for them. They will lie with it, lick it, or carry it around with them. They also seem to know when they have had enough from the crystal, and move away from it.  It is hard to know whether this is just a coincidence, but since many animals seek out particular plants with therapeutic properties, why not crystals?

They also used essential oils which, when infused into the air of the room, calmed the hedgehogs. However care had to be taken with particularly strong-smelling oils, because they are antidotal to homoeopathic remedies and, therefore, had to be kept away from hedgehogs receiving homoeopathic treatment.  Unsurprisingly lavender (Lavandula spp.) was the most commonly used oil, because of its calming, balancing effect, and is a natural insect repellent.  It soothes pain and inflammation, is antiseptic, kills bacteria, and helps to expel parasites.

What fascinated me most, however, were the auditory sensibilities of hedgehogs.  Hedgehogs rely heavily on their hearing and so are very responsive to sound. The following had a beneficial effect: Johann Strauss waltzes, Pachabel’s Canon, Enya, European bird song, and natural environment noise. Sounds to avoid were: Mozart (too powerful and jumpy), rock music (especially heavy metal), sounds of predatory animals, and jungle noises.

I think that I might have something in common with hedgehogs, as I certainly go along with their views on heavy metal!

Career opportunity?
Extinction beckons for one species of vital importance to the UK: the systematic biologist. According to a recent report, there is compelling evidence that the scientists responsible for discovering, describing and classifying new species are becoming increasingly rare. The decline has come at a time when the need for experts is pressing.  The UK is now committed to protect its own biodiversity and help developing nations to find out what species they have and how to conserve them.
Without systematic biology, ecologists and conservationists do not know which species exist within ecosystems and cannot discover which are thriving and which are under threat of extinction.  This is as true in the UK, where we think we know most of what we have, as it is in the species-rich nations of the developing world.

In the plant kingdom alone, botanists are describing around 2600 new species each year and there are thought to be well over 50,000 species still awaiting discovery - researchers have recently revised estimates for the total number of flowering plant species up from 300,000 to 400,000.  People think that after 250 years of cataloguing, there’s nothing exciting left to do. They’d be wrong, says Simon Owens, Keeper of Kew’s Herbarium.

Combusting compost!
Since the purchase by English Nature, earlier this year, of the bogs that produce a large proportion of horticultural peat in the UK, more and more gardeners will be turning to peat-free soil conditioners and potting mixes to use at home. However for a basic compost to dig into your beds, produce your own but take care!

Kew’s compost heaps are reckoned to be among the biggest in the country, and they’re fast too.  Continually turning them over using an earth-mover creates usable compost in as little as six weeks.  The Gardens’ staff separate the waste into woody material such as tree prunings and herbaceous waste such as grass clippings and leaves, says Jerry Plunkett, Recycling Team Leader.  The third ingredient is stable manure which we used to obtain from the Household Cavalry but most of it now comes from the Metropolitan Police stables.

The manure is prepared and then mixed with shredded garden waste to trigger and accelerate the composting process. The manure is prepared by simply piling it up and turning and watering often enough to begin the rotting process while keeping it cool enough to prevent spontaneous combustion.

It can certainly get hot in there: Kew’s gardeners have been known to bake potatoes in the heaps. Temperatures of almost 100ºC have been recorded, which might be okay if you want a hot lunch but is too much for the composting organisms. The last time a manure heap caught light we had to call the fire brigade, says David Barnes, Kew’s Manager of Horticultural Operations and Services.  In which case, I hope that they have got them well dampened down at the moment!

Toast to tutor!
I received the other day the most charming letter from two ladies at Dewsbury College in West Yorkshire, asking if I might mention their tutor. I wouldn’t normally do this but, as it is that time of year, why not? It is most refreshing to hear from students who really appreciate the efforts of their teacher. They have been training under her tutelage for five years now and still seem as keen as ever. Well done Janet Stocks: keep up the good work!      

Padma pads more easily on!
Padma 28, the mixture of 22 mineral and botanical ingredients used in traditional Tibetan medicine about which I wrote last in my May 2000 Newsletter, has undergone three rigorous double-blind, placebo-controlled trials.  The results in all of these showed that Padma 28 was superior to placebo in increasing pain-free walking [Schweiz Med. Wochenschr., 1985; 115: 752-6; Angiology, 1993; 44: 836-67; Forsch Komplementarmed, 1994; 1: 18-26].

Hope for me yet?!
As a four cup a day man, I was relieved to read that research published in the European Journal of Neurology shows that coffee can reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s by as much as 60%.  The research found that healthy, elderly people with no signs of brain disease had consumed an average of three or four cups of coffee a day since the age of 25.  This compared to those with the illness - which affects one in ten Britons over the age of 85 - who drank just one cup of coffee a day.  If I reach 85, I’ll let you know if it’s true!

What’s more, a study by Professor Gordon Parker of the University of New South Wales has found that depressed people who eat chocolate cake could be self-medicating. The study, which was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, backs up theories about chocolate being a ‘feel good’ food.  Professor Parker found that eating chocolate triggers the same chemical response in the brain as anti-anxiety drugs such as Prozac and Zoloft.  Chocolate also releases peptides from the gut and brain which contain a chemical called L-tryptophan which is similar to the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) drugs.  If this truly be the case, I shall get a box of Black Magic when next I am doing the VAT return!

Long distance learning?
It is always a pleasure curling up in the settee and reading your newsletter.  You must be the only person that can still get me once a month to go looking for my dictionary, so not only do I learn things about health, etc., but I have to keep working on my English as well, e-mailed Marianne Debock from Belgium. Good heavens!  I wish that I had been so assiduous with my Flemish which, by the way, I used to speak as a teenager so that I could chat up the lovely mesdemoiselles of Le Zoute. Happy days!

Treats from Tamilnadu.
I have just said farewell to our Jasmine and Tuberose supplier from Tamilnadu, who popped in unexpectedly to drop off some samples of his White and Pink Lotus oils.

Whilst here, I asked him why delivery of our Jasmine Sambac was taking so long.  We had last taken a consignment in March. His reply did not entirely surprise me, because I had read it somewhere before.

With regard to Jasmine Sambac (Jasminum sambac (L.) Aiton), the most important factors affecting profitability for the producer are the number of flowers harvested per hectare and their concrete content.  As a guide, I seem to recollect that one ton of Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum L.) blossoms produces around 2.5kg of concrete, and 2.3kg of concrete yield 1kg of absolute. There are something like 8,000 individual blossoms to a kilo of flowers and, therefore, it takes about 8 million blooms to produce a kilo of absolute.  Makes you think!

Unless the cultivar chosen has a high potential yield of both flowers and concrete, it is almost impossible to make money. For example, the concrete yield of nine cultivars of Jasmine sambac varies from 1.2 to 12kg/ha when grown under similar conditions. Similarly to flower yield, concrete has a peak: in India, it is 0.31% in July, 0.26% in February and November. 
 
We had been fortunate to catch some of the February production but not so lucky in July, when the major fragrance houses had first “call”, and therefore have had to wait until now. Of course I could have gone through “normal commercial channels” but, for the more exotic, I do like my “special sources”.

Don’t ask me how many blooms there are to the kilo, but it takes 3,600 kilos of flowers to produce one kilo of Tuberose Absolute from concrete. The tuberose plant is a tender, tall, slim perennial, Polianthes tuberosa L., a native of Central America. Its name refers to its bulb (it is tuberous) although this is not truly a tuber in botanical terms.  It has no connection with “rose”at all, being related to the Narcissus and other popular garden plants.  Tuberose is one of the flowers which continues to produce and exhale perfume long after it has been removed from the plant.

I think it a great fragrance, with a heavy floral, almost nauseatingly sweet, heavy and somewhat spicy odour, which is a little reminiscent of honeysuckle.  Although it has been analytically investigated over the years, nothing has come to light to explain why it has such an outstanding floral sweetness and power.

In contrast, I find the Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera Gaertner) oils most disappointing, but subtle. Although I can perhaps understand why, I find it very difficult to justify the high price being requested for this product.  Nonetheless I shall get some for you to try in the New Year. 

Finally...
Last orders for pre-Christmas delivery must be received before noon on Wednesday, 18th December. 
We shall be closed from the evening of Monday, 23rd December, until the morning of Monday, 30th December, 2002.

A very happy Christmas from us all!




charles@essentiallyoils.com
 

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