Aromatherapy strikes me as being the most attractive and probably safest of all the branches of complementary medicine. How far it is capable of dealing with the really worrying symptoms of disease is open to doubt, but whatever its efficacy in the context of life-threatening situations, I am convinced it helps people cope with many minor indispositions.
Perfumes have for many millennia played their parts in religious ceremonies where atmosphere has predisposed to an appropriate state of mind and relaxation of sense organs. The ancient Egyptians described odour as "fragrance of the gods", and like other early civilisations employed fragrances in sacrificial offerings and incenses. Anise, cedarwood, cassia, cinnamon, citron, ginger, heliotrope, rose, rosemary, lavender, sandalwood and other sources of essential oils were regularly employed as perfume ingredients. In ancient cultures the pharmacist concerned with perfumery was called myrepsos, and was so distinguished from the iatros, the physician who used his perfumes as therapeutic agents.
Herbal fragrances were also resorted to in domestic circles, not only as medicines but also as cleansing agents. Herodotus tells us that the Scythians, whom we tend to regard as barbarians, found washing with water a painful process in their frozen latitudes, but were in the habit of plastering their skin with a paste compounded of cypress, cedar and frankincense with a little water. "A sweet odour is thereby imparted to them", writes the historian, "and when they take off the plaster the following day, their skin is clean and glossy." It is perhaps difficult to visualise a wild Scythian with clean and glossy skin, but we have no reason for disbelieving Herodotus.
Theophrastus in the late 4th century BC wrote an essay on odours which serves as the basis of the modern theory of perfumery in general and aromatherapy in particular. He pointed out that marjoram if inhaled too freely might provoke headache but rose relieved tiredness. It is reckoned nowadays that essential oils of basil, pine, peppermint and rosemary invigorate the inhaler, while those of bergamot, camomile, lavender, geranium and sandalwood relax and soothe the troubled mind. It took many centuries for perfumers in France to take up the challenge from the classical writers and devise schemes for applying their ideas in modern therapy, but we now have a considerable body of theory and experience to fall back upon.
One of the virtues of treatment with essential oils is that they may be administered in various ways and in general do not require to be administered by mouth or injection like most of our conventional drugs. The essential oils may be inhaled from a pillow or a handkerchief, vaporised in a special lamp or dissolved in a fixed oil and rubbed into the skin. We tend, I suspect, to underrate the particular virtues of our nasal mucosa and epidermis in facilitating the entry of many chemical compounds into the body.