Jane Buckle’s ‘m’ Technique was, I think, a singular success, but I had other things to do.  Upon collection at the local railway station, Jane announced that she had left her mobile phone, plugged into the floor charging, in the ‘Upper Crust’ cafe on Platform 4 at Reading Station. Without wishing to make too fine a point of it, I was rather alarmed in the current climate of unease.

Nevertheless, once home, Jane furiously punched numbers into the phone as I frantically called them out of the directory - National Railway Help Desk, Local Railway Help Desk, Lost Property and, finally, Transport Police.  Obviously the Transport Police are well used to these aberrations and suggested promptly that we contact ‘the bloke in the signal box’.  Who?!

Hello! Hello!  Much to my amazement somebody picked up the phone: Jane explained her predicament. Not a problem, I’ll just pop down and check out the Upper Crust. Good Lord! Would this mean that the whole of Reading’s, Friday night, railway commuter traffic would come to a grinding halt? To be honest, I thought that we were already in enough trouble as it was. Nah! Don’t worry luv, I’ll call you back in a jiffy! Jane was obviously most impressed, and kept muttering that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen in America. Sure enough, within a few minutes our hero was back. Got it! Just go to Platform Four and say that Lee sent you. Lee?  Lee Powers, as in Austin Powers!  Jane was bedazzled: I was simply relieved.

The following morning I headed for Reading, clutching a bottle of whisky.  Escorted by a burly dog handler, with a suitably aggressive-looking Alsatian, I made my way through the milling travellers to the rear of a queue snaking out of the most minuscule room on Platform Four.  

I have read that Railway Lost Property offices are the source of the most unlikely objects, but have never really believed it.  How could one possibly forget a pet Pekingese, wooden leg or stuffed gnu’s head before disembarking ?  Very simply indeed, it seems. Those before me in the queue had the most amazing tales of woe: one woman had even left her baby on the train! Although I was absolutely fascinated, it was getting me nowhere fast and so, in desperation, I grabbed a passing ‘train dispatcher’.  This official title, emblazoned on his back, was entirely new to me, which probably means that I haven’t been on a station platform since they phased out guards, or have they?

Lee Powers, the guy in the signal box, sent me.  Sorry mate, never heard of him. He said the phone would be with the platform staff.  I don’t know about that, but what make is it?  I don’t know. Harrumph!  Two minutes later he returned with the phone and relieved me of the bottle of Scotch, assuring me faithfully that it would get to Lee!?
Injury in the family.
I think that I’ve twisted my ankle, muttered Jan.  Unfortunately, an easy thing to do in our household because young Mick, Jan’s Glen of Imaal terrier, just loves bones: the bigger the better. They are littered everywhere.  As fast as we dispose of them, he retrieves them from the most unlikely places.  In fact, only this very morning, I almost rendered myself immobile. Where my bedroom slippers are normally placed, for absolute ease without really opening my eyes, there was the disassembled skeleton of half an ox: he is such a caring and sharing little chappie!

Still, Jan’s ankle was really very bad: severely swollen and most painful. The offer of a bag of frozen peas was quickly rejected as being far too much to bear. Therefore, only one thing for it: feet up! As Jan is absolutely pivotal, both at home and in the office, there would have to be some adjustments. However, meanwhile, I set out to discover what should be done to the ankle.

First aid for sprains starts with applying ice, if available, or a cold compress to the affected area as soon as possible to reduce internal bleeding and inflammation.  Compress the affected part with an elastic or crepe bandage, and raise it to reduce swelling.

A damaged ligament must be protected from repeated overstretching and so avoid any weight bearing or unnecessary use of the affected part.  Consult a doctor or physiotherapist as soon as possible.

In severe sprains, particularly of the ankle joint, the doctor may advise immobilising the joint in a plaster cast. Jan would have none of it: we’re in the alternative health business!

Although firm strapping and padding may be necessary at first (rejected!), some advised that massage should be commenced at the earliest opportunity to disperse swellings and prevent the formation of adhesions - the joining of internal surfaces that are normally separate - and also to encourage the normal free range of movement of the injured joint.

In the early stages of treatment, I was told, massage should be restricted to a firm effleurage stroking movement above and below the injured joint.  At subsequent treatments, when the pain and swelling have subsided, the depth of treatment should be gradually increased and a gentle petrissage around the joint with the thumb and fingers introduced.  Eventually, it will be possible to apply massage to the injured joint itself.

Knowing not my effleurage from my petrissage, I reached for Jennie Harding’s practical step-by-step guide to aromatherapy massage at home: Aromatherapy Massage for You. However, I was still not sufficiently confident to try it on Jan and, therefore, thought that Mungu might be a better place to start. I would use no oils on my canine chum, just practise the massage strokes.  What a disaster!  As he lay in ecstasy upon the couch, wagging his tail and licking my bifocals, I kept losing my place in the book!  I gave up.

Jan, however, is made of sterner stuff and with the aid of Arnica (Arnica montana L.) she has reduced greatly the swelling and bruising herself. A gentle self-massage with two drops each of Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis L.) and Sweet Marjoram (Origanum majorana L.) in a teaspoon of carrier oil is to follow. Anyhow, after only four days at home with her feet up she is back in the office, pedalling herself about on an office chair. Now all I have to do is sort out the ironing, cooking, cleaning and shopping!   

Vexatious Vetiver.
Vetiver is yellowish or amber or brown in colour. But this vetiver is real black. When applied very small amount on the paper, it appears dark gray. And smell is different from vetiver. So, wrong dispatch. You sent other oil. With the oil in front of me, I could understand my Far Eastern correspondent’s concern.

Although the essential oil of vetiver rootlets (Vetiveria zizanoides (L.) Nash) apparently is a product of comparatively recent times, the rootlets themselves have been used for their odour since antiquity.

The plant is a grass, a tall perennial which originates in India, probably also in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The grass grows wild in India, Sri Lanka, Burma, the Malaysian Peninsula, etc., but little essential oil is derived from the wild growing grass. For the purpose of distilling oil, the grass is cultivated in southern India, Indonesia (particularly in Java), Haiti, Reunion, etc., and in many other tropical regions.

Vetiver oil is steam distilled from cleaned and washed rootlets which are dried, cut and chopped, then again usually soaked in water prior to distillation. If a fully developed root system and a high quality of oil are desired, the root should not be extracted from the ground earlier than 24 months after planting.  Young roots are tender, thin, almost hair-like. When distilled, they yield an essential oil with a low specific gravity and low optical rotation.  The odour of these “light” oils is “green”, “earthy.” Older, more developed, somewhat thicker root, on the other hand, yields an oil of better quality; its specific gravity and optical rotation are higher, the odour fuller, richer, more lasting.  Oils derived from older root are usually of darker colour than the oils distilled from younger root.

The quality of vetiver oil depends not only upon the age of the root, but also upon the length of distillation.  The most valuable constituents of the oil, and most important in regard to odour, are high boiling and can be recovered only by prolonged distillation, which, obviously, means more steam consumption and a higher cost.  By the use of superheated steam toward the end of distillation, the hours of distillation may be shortened.

Thus, a general description of vetiver oil is not easy to give.

However, as a general guide, vetiver oil is an amber coloured to grayish brown, olive brown or dark brown viscous liquid whose odour is sweet and very heavy woody-earthy, reminiscent of roots and wet soil, with a rich undertone of “precious wood” notes. Oils distilled from too young roots and very freshly distilled oils may display some “green” potato-peel-like or asparagus-like topnotes. Needless to say, I am indebted to the great, late Steffan Arctander for such descriptive observations.

However, there is no definite rule to confirm the saying that dark oils are superior, nor that the optical rotation will indicate the quality of the oil.

Still, due to the fact that vetiver rootlets yield almost exclusively high-boiling components on steam distillation, other methods of isolating the aromatic constituents have been tried.

Molecular distillation of vetiver oil and other high-boiling essential oils has become more of a common practice. In the case of vetiver, oils with a very high content of vetiverol are obtained, and the colour is often straw yellow or pale amber.  Could it be with these anhydrols that my Korean correspondent compares? Vetiverol is responsible for the very faint, but tenacious, suave and sweet-woody odour, while vetiverone seems to lend bitter earthiness to the odour of the oil.

The GC/MS analysis before me and the splendid picture in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils by Julia Lawless confirm that he was sent no wrong oil. What is more, as a few drops dry out on my blotter, the rich undertone of “precious woods” is wafting gently to my nostrils!

A brief look at anhydrols.
Anhydrols are processed perfume or flavour materials.  As is indicated by the name, these materials are produced from natural raw materials without the presence of water or steam.

Anhydrols are usually viscous liquids of pale colour.  They are the results of a combination of extraction of the natural raw material and subsequent molecular distillation of the extract. The solvent may be ethyleneglycol, other glycols, isopropylmyristate or other high-boiling, odourless solvents, mostly of the oil-soluble type.

The resulting extract may then be distilled in a molecular still.  A molecular distillation is
a physical process, during which a liquid or a low-melting solid of high boiling point is 
converted into vapour phase, removed from the liquid phase and condensed back to liquid phase, and separated from the liquid in the still.

The new liquid phase, the condensate, is the molecular distillate. There is no fractionation, no reflux, no column on the still.  It is basically a simple distillation at very reduced pressure and under such circumstances that the material to be distilled is exposed to the heat as briefly as possible.

There are many types of still and various designs of rotating heaters, where the liquid is spread as a film to speed evaporation and reduce the heating time.

Obviously, the anhydrols will contain significant amounts of the solvent with which they have been extracted. But this co-distillation is just one of the advantages of the process. The solvent may form so-called azeotropes - a mixture of liquids in which the boiling point remains constant during distillation, at a given pressure, without change in composition - with one or more of the odorous ingredients in the extract.  Thus, the distillation temperature can be reduced. Plant colours and other odourless material will be retained in the still.

According to some theories, anything that has a measurable vapour pressure also has an odour. Be this the case, anhydrols should be ideal: no odourless material at all. Many aromatic components of the extracts, which are not distillable with steam, will distil in the molecular co-distillation process. Consequently, this method is applied mainly to such materials which yield little essential oil on steam or water distillation or which are too high-boiling to yield an oil unchanged.

SLS, SLES & Paraben Free.
Most books about toxic chemicals are about saving the planet.  This is a book about saving ourselves.

The moment I read the opening paragraph of the foreword to Cleansing Yourself to Death, I knew that Pat Thomas was going to let us have it with both barrels.  Passionate about her subject, she had given fair warning two years earlier in a mind-jolting article in WDDTY (What Doctors Don’t Tell You) that she was going to campaign vigorously against toxic toiletries. 

The glossy images we’re fed by the media hide a dangerous secret: most of our toiletries, even the “natural variety”, are made up of the same harsh, toxic chemicals used for industry.

I scrutinized the list of culprits.  Strewth, we were well and truly in the frame! This was back in 1999 and few had ever questioned the presence of sodium lauryl sulphate (SLS), sodium laureth sulphate (SLES) and the parabens in our cosmetic bases.

According to the article, SLS, found in shampoos, hair conditioners, toothpastes and body washes, is a strong detergent which can cause eye irritation, permanent damage to the eyes, especially in children, skin rashes, hair loss, flaking skin and mouth ulceration. It made for uneasy reading. SLES, although a milder cleaning agent than its cousin SLS, can apparently be contaminated with the carcinogen 1,4-dioxane, and there is no way of telling which might be contaminated and which might not. I was beginning to wince.  The parabens, methyl,  propyl, butyl and ethyl, used to extend a product’s shelf life and inhibit microbial growth, were described as highly toxic, capable of causing rashes and other allergic reactions.  I was ready to pack up shop.  I spoke to our cosmetologist, Dr. Cream.

He tried everything, but was never entirely happy with the end result. The years ticked by. Then, just as I thought that he had cracked it, he announced that he was going elsewhere: I was momentarily stymied.  I then remembered the next paragraph of the foreword to Pat’s book.

When I was at school, people who liked science and chemistry were nerds. The kids who could pronounce those long chemical names and who could get their chemistry experiments to work properly, or whose science projects were actually scientific, seemed to inhabit a different world from the rest of us and pretty much existed to be teased and poked fun at.  Today it turns out the joke is on the rest of us because chemicals rule our lives.  

I would ask a chap who knows a thing or two about chemicals. It didn’t take Justin long to find the answer: a range of SLS, SLES & Paraben free Cosmetic Bases!  Let me know what you think of them.

The tint of your tongue.
Do you have any information on tongue colouring? I don’t expect you do, but I have been asked often “what colour your tongue should be”, e-mailed Carole Wallis. 

Like Western doctors, traditional oriental practitioners begin every consultation by trying to identify the patient’s problem. However, since they have a very different view of how the healthy body functions and of what causes disease, they rely on completely different methods of diagnosis.

Practitioners consider the colour, shape and coating of the tongue as well as how moist or dry it is, whether it has surface markings, such as cracks or ‘thorns’, and whether there are any scars or ulcers on it.

Different parts of the tongue are examined to provide information about different organs.  For example, a bluish-purple tip is said to show a particular energy state in the heart, and teeth marks around the edge may indicate a digestion problem.

A light white coating is considered to be normal, but a thicker grey, yellow or white ‘fur’ to show some disturbance.  A healthy tongue should be slightly moist, indicating the body fluids are flowing freely; if it is too dry or too moist, an imbalance is diagnosed.

The exact type of imbalance is decided by considering other signs such as whether the tongue is cracked, swollen, stiff or quivering, together with all the other information obtained from the patient.
                
Perhaps some occidental practitioners will let me have their views as well.

All to gain?
Following my piece last month - Nothing to lose? - about inoperable carcinoma of the head of the pancreas, I have been moved deeply by the number of you who have offered various suggestions. Unfortunately, I have only space to mention a  few and cannot vouch for the efficacy of the remedies.

Peter O’ Rourke, a most instinctive practitioner of many years standing in the United States,  supplied most kindly a list of some essential oils indicated as helpful in cancer. 

His intuitive action in this respect has been to try individual oils until a response is detected and then to proceed with that oil for 3 to 4 weeks, allow the body to rest for two weeks, and then to repeat the therapy. Changing oils from time to time allows for prolonged therapy, and helps to avoid the possibility of potentially toxic ketones in the body. 

Obviously the user of the oil needs to be aware of possible adverse reactions and, if they occur, stop using that oil immediately and try another oil.

Some of Peter’s suggestions would not have occurred to me immediately, but others have substantial research behind them.  However, it must be understood that in the majority of cases the research does not refer specifically to the volatile oil.

Still, here’s a selection: Clove Bud (Syzygium aromaticum (L.) Merr. & Perry); Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens L.); Chamomile Blue (Matricaria recutita L.); Davana (Artemisia pallens Wall ex. DC); Frankincense (Boswellia carteri Birdw.); Lemon (Citrus limon (L.) Burm. f.); Myrrh (Commiphora myrrha Holmes); Niaouli (Melaleuca quinquenervia (Cav.) S.T. Blake); Saffron (Crocus sativus L.); Spikenard (Nardostachys grandiflora DC); and Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.).

Peter also proposed a GLA-Rich Carrier Blend: Avocado (Persea americana Miller); Borage Seed (Borago officinalis L.); Carrot (Daucus carota L.); Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis L.); Fractionated Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.); Grapeseed (Vitis vinifera L.); Kukui Nut (Aleurites moluccana (L.) Willd.); Macadamia (Macadamia integrifolia Maiden & Betche); and Rosehip Seed (Rosa rubiginosa L.). 

For topical applications, use 30 drops essential oil to 100ml carrier oil. Apply 4 times per day.

Peter emphasizes that this is an area where extreme measures may be the only recourse, and the aim is to help in every possible way, but there is no intention of giving false hope.     

Susan Hagan, who has considerable experience having trained in Nepal in the 1970s, suggests that Ayurveda might assist. She mentions that there is a similar case, very late stage, quoted in Maria Treben’s book Cures, who recovered using herbal drinks and Swedish bitters. In fact, although reluctant to advertise the fact because she is not medically qualified, all the people with cancer that she treats Ayurvedically take this mix and all are surviving, and some are now clear.

It seems miraculous, but I hear of several similar cases every year. Those with nothing to lose are often happy to try anything, and it often works. Don’t ask me how.


Saffron Snippet.
It is interesting that Peter should have suggested Saffron (Crocus sativus L.), because I have been doing a little research on the subject myself. Some may know that the world’s finest saffron comes from Kashmir.

The freshly picked saffron is virtually odourless and, on steam distillation, yields extremely little essential oil.  However, saffron essential oil has been known for many years, probably because of the interest in the plant since time immemorial.

The plant is the autumn flowering cousin of our spring flowering garden crocus.  These days, most commercial saffron comes from Iran and Spain. Saffron is the dried ends (tops) of the three-branched stylus in the flower. When dry, this material has a most peculiar, intensely sweet, spicy odour.  It is used as a condiment in Asia, and in Europe as a colouring agent, producing a magnificent and unique orange-yellow colour. Also, whilst in Kashmir, we consumed many cups of saffron tea, to which I could become quite addicted!

The odour is partly due to the presence of an aldehyde, Safranal.  This aldehyde will appear only after decomposition of a glycoside, a so-called precursor to the aldehyde. The glycoside is odourless, hence the absence of odour in the freshly picked material.

Although I have analysed saffron oil in the past, I am not sure that it is commonly available: I haven’t come across any for years.  A tincture is more usually produced.  By petroleum ether extraction of saffron and subsequent decomposition of the glycosidic extract with lukewarm water, the aldehyde is liberated. 

A 20% tincture will serve most perfumery and flavour purposes since the penetrative strength of this material is easily underestimated.  I have just cast my nose over some 50% material that we have in stock and it is very strong indeed!    

Nevertheless, an essential oil can be produced directly from the saffron by water distillation in carbon dioxide atmosphere. The oil is pale yellow, mobile and possesses a fresh, strong odour, reminiscent of the raw material.  However, the essential oil is extremely unstable, and saffron, as such, is one of the most expensive botanical raw materials.

Antitumour effect of Saffron?
For years, plant based natural products have been a fertile source of a cure for cancer, which is projected to become the major cause of death in this century. There are at least 250,000 species of plants out of which more than one thousand have been found to possess significant  anticancer properties.

From ancient times, saffron has been used widely as a drug against different human diseases.  In the beginning of the 1990s scientific literature reported for the first time the antitumour activity of saffron.  During the last decade different laboratories have accumulated sufficient scientific evidence to suggest that saffron, and its main ingredients, can inhibit the process of carcinogenesis effectively in vivo and in vitro.

Saffron and its carotenoid ingredients are chemopreventive in cultivated human malignant cells and animal models, inhibiting cell growth. Maybe this is how they reduce outgrowth of tumor cells in vivo.  It has been shown that these malignant cells are more sensitive than normal cells to the inhibitory effect of saffron. Inhibition of intracellular nucleic acid synthesis and free radical chain reactions may contribute to explain the molecular mechanism of antitumor effect of saffron.  Although it is too soon to celebrate, the antitumor activity of saffron is quite promising and warrants further investigations, particularly in clinical trials.  

Finally......
I am advised by Pat Archer that Dr. Ali, Britain’s top integrated health expert, recommends taking Amla [see Newsletter 161] powder, which contains perfectly preserved natural Vit.C and other ingredients that help eyesight (perhaps by aiding circulation of blood to the retina). This might be just what I need, if I am to avoid stubbing my toe in young Mick’s boneyard!




charles@essentiallyoils.com

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