Using Essential Oils

by Herbal Antibiotics

April 2007

Essential oils are made by distilling volatile oils from plants. Essential oil makes up 1/2 to 5 percent of a plant’s weight, most plants tending toward the lower end of the scale. For a plant that is 1 percent essential oil, it will take 100 ounces of plant (a little over 6 pounds (2 3/4 kg) to get 1 ounce (30 ml) of essential oil.

Knowledge of herbal medicine was considered exceptionally important for prospective wives and mothers during the Middle Ages, and few homes did not have their own “still rooms” where herbal medicines were prepared. Distilling plant essences was a part of this herbal knowledge for many women, and aromatherapy had its birth in rudimentary form in Europe at that time. Most people buy their essential oils, but I have met a few wise women who are reclaiming this long-lost tradition and are distilling their own essences from the plants that grow in the fields and valley near their homes. Most of us, however, buy them ready-made.

Essential oils work by directly making contact with bacteria that reside on the mucous membranes of the nose and sinuses and by absorption through those mucous linings directly into the system. In this way the active principles of the plant bypass the gastrointestinal tract, and go directly into the bloodstream. Because it takes so much of the plant to make an essential oil, these oils are very strong in their actions. To get an idea of their strength: by taking a whole ounce of essential oil into the body (a bad idea, by the way), you would essentially be consuming 6 pounds of a plant in a form that would go to work in the body nearly instantly. That is why essential oils are greatly diluted, used in diffusers, or taken internally in minute doses (from 1 to 5 drops at a time). They can be extremely toxic when taken internally.

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