Armotherapy
“Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived. The odors of fruits waft me to my southern home, to my childhood frolics in the peach orchard. Other odors, instantaneous and fleeting, cause my heart to dilate joyously or contract with remembered grief. Even as I think of smells, my nose is full of scents that start awake sweet memories of summers gone and ripening fields far away.” (Keller qtd in Feller xxii) Our sense of smell has been linked to our sense of taste, our memories, our bodies, and now our emotions. Whose mouth doesn’t water at the smell of bread baking in the oven? Who isn’t transported back in time to our mother or grandmother’s kitchen, by the smell of freshly-baked cookies? Just the thought of the distinctive rotten-egg odor of sulfur is enough to turn most people’s stomachs. We use perfumes, after-shave, scented soaps, and air-fresheners to smell ‘better’. Aromatherapy expands on this practice. It is the use of aromas from essential oils created by plants to heal and enhance a person’s mental and physical well being. The long and varied history of Aromatherapy can be traced back to the time of the Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt. Hasnain Walji was no doubt referring to the hieroglyphics found in the temple of Edfu and the Ebers Papyrus---a seventy odd foot medical scroll from 1500 BC---when he contends “that their practise of medicine, rituals, embalming, and astrology incorporated the use of fragrant spices and oils, resins and bark, and that their vinegars, wines and beers were scented.” (9) In the temples and on the streets, incense was burned as an offering to the various Egyptian gods. Scented cones made out of animal fat or charcoal were worn inside the hairpieces and headdresses of commoners and royalty, alike. The Egyptians’ love of scent extended even into their deaths. Egyptian embalmers used assorted oils, plants, and spices in preparing the body for the after life. “Traces of resins like galbanum, and spices such as clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg, have been isolated from the bandages of mummies.” (Ryman 6) When King Tutankhamen’s tomb was opened in 1922, pots were found containing remnants of frankincense and myrrh, their scent still noticeable in the air. One has only to think of the great Queen Cleopatra to see how extensively that scent was used. Legend says that in order to help her seduce Mark Anthony, Cleopatra had rose petals strewn in the entranceways of her palace. When he walked over them, the crushed petals released their smell. The smell of a rose is a natural aphrodisiac for many people and has proven calming abilities. The sails of Cleopatra’s ships were soaked in essential oils, so that the winds would carry her scent to him. The love of scent carried on into Greek and Roman civilizations. From 400 BC, Tehphrastus, a Greek physician, wrote “Concerning Odors” one of the first books dealing with the use of essential oils. A more famous contemporary of his, Hippocrates, was a vocal advocate of Aromatherapy. Hippocrates believed in the health benefits of daily aromatic baths and scented massages.