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ALOE VERA

A Sumerian clay tablet, found in the city of Nippur in Mesopotamia and dating from around 2,000 BC, includes Aloe in its list of useful healing plants. This is the earliest recorded pharmaceutical use of Aloe and predates the written Egyptian records, which are commonly cited as being the first known source of Aloe vera and its medicinal uses.

Around 1500 BC, during the reign of the Pharaoh Amen-Hotep I, the Egyptians gave us the first detailed analysis of Aloe’s medical value in the Papyrus Ebers.¹ This was named after the German Egyptologist Georg Ebers who, together with a wealthy German called Herr Gunther, bought it in the winter of 1872 from an Egyptian who had found it in 1858 between the knees of a mummy in a tomb at El Assassif, near Thebes. The Papyrus Ebers was given intact to the University of Leipzig, where it remains to this day in almost perfect condition.

The Papyrus Ebers is not so much a coherent text as a collection of medical documents and folklore on the causes and treatments of diseases and the correct religious rites to accompany them. Ebers considered the book to be one of the ‘Hermetic Books’ of the ancient Egyptians. It is the earliest known complete papyrus extant, and is extremely detailed. In fact it is a miscellaneous collection compiled from at least 40 different sources. Some of the material is much older than 1500 BC, anything from 500 or 2,000 years prior to the date it became a coherent text.

In ancient Egypt, medicine and healing were intricately connected with the spiritual life: incantations were used to invoke those gods who ruled life and healing, in particular Isis and Ra. Uses for Aloe were both pharmaceutical and spiritual.

Although it is customary to refer to the Papyrus Ebers as giving 12 formulae for the use of Aloe to treat a number of disorders, this is now questionable following consultation with the Egyptian Department of the British Museum. According to Miss Carol Andrews, Assistant Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities, on checking two-thirds of the remedies we find that only two refer to a plant which has a bitter, disagreeable taste and needs to be compensated for with the sweetness of honey. It would appear that this is Aloe vera. The other remedies refer to cinnamon bark, which could have been confused with aloeswood, another aromatic wood.

Greek doctors did some of their medical training in the great school of Alexandria and their knowledge of the Aloe plant surpassed that of the Egyptians. Aloe was first mentioned in Greek pharmacology by Celsius (25 BC–AD 50) when it was referred to as a purgative, one of the best known and earliest uses of the plant. It is to a famous 1st-century Greek physician, Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarba, however, that we are indebted for his extensive work on the plant in his De Materia Medica (AD 41–68). This is the first detailed Western treatise following on from the Papyrus Ebers and describes more than 600 plants.

Some 400 years later, the Greek Herbal of Dioscorides was illustrated by a Byzantine and called the Codex Anicine Julianae. It is found in Vienna and includes some of the oldest surviving representations of Eastern Mediterranean plants, including a coloured plate of Aloe vera.

It took a further 1,500 years from the time of Dioscorides before his De Materia Medica was translated into English by John Goodyer. From this 15th-century translation, together with knowledge of the works of Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79), the great classical physician Rufus of Ephesus (early 2nd century AD) and the great Galen (late 2nd century AD), known as the Father of Modern Medicine, Western physicians learned of the wide range of Aloe’s medical versatility. This included treating ulcerated genitals, healing the foreskin, getting rid of haemorrhoids, wound healing, treating insomnia and stomach disorders, reversing hair loss, treating mouth and gum diseases, boils, sunburn, constipation and kidney ailments. In addition, it prevented vomiting of blood, was an effective purgative and was good for tonsillitis and eye infections.

In an altogether charming description of the plant and its medicinal uses, Dioscorides describes the plant as having a leaf…

like Squill, thick, gross, somewhat broad in ye compass, broken or bowbacked behind, but on either part it hath ye leaves prickly by ye sides, appearing thinly, short. But it sends out a stalk like to Anthericum, but a white flower, & a seed like until Asphodelus. All of it, is of a strong scent, & very bitter to ye taster, but it is but of one root having a root as a stake. It grows in India very much, gross, from whence also ye extracted juice is brought. It grows also in Arabia and Asia, & in certain sea-bordering places and Islands, as in Andros, not good for extracting juice but fitting for ye conglutinating of wounds, being laid on when it is beaten small …²

Medically Aloe’s properties were wide-ranging, and Dioscorides recommended it for numerous conditions including:

…splitting of blood … cleanseth ye Icterus … taken either with water, or sod honey it looseth ye belly … it assuageth Scabritias and the itchings of ye eye corner, and ye headache being anointed with acetum & Rosaceum, on ye forehead & the temples, & with wine it stays ye hair falling off, & with honey and wine it is good for ye tonsillae, as also the gums and all griefs in ye mouth. But it is roasted also for eye medicines in a cleane and red hot earthen vessell, being kept turned with a splatter until that it is roasted equally …³

In the same period, Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79), a highly respected Roman physician, in his Natural History not only confirmed Dioscorides’ writings on Aloes but also added his own medical findings. He advises that the best aloes to use ‘will be fatty and shiny, of a ruddy colour, friable, compact like liver, and easily melted’. Aloe’s nature is ‘bracing, astringent and gently warming’. Of its many uses, the chief is to ‘relax the bowels, for it is almost the only laxative that is also a stomach tonic, no ill effects whatever resulting from its use’. To regularize the bowels, he recommends Aloe in warm or cold water, taken two or three times daily as required. For hair loss prevention, Aloe mixed with dry wine should be rubbed on the head ‘in the contrary way to the hair’. Mixed with rose oil and vinegar, Aloe soothed headaches if applied to the temples or forehead.⁴

Pliny discovered that the root of the Aloe could be boiled down and used as a treatment in leprosy, for healing leprous sores. Furthermore, he found that it could help check perspiration by mixing Aloe with rue boiled in rose oil. Doubtless this was the world’s first-known anti-perspirant!

After Dioscorides and Pliny, it was the Greek physician Galen who dominated medical history from the 2nd century AD until the Middle Ages. In the earlier part of the 2nd century AD his predecessor, the great classical physician Rufus of Ephesus wrote On the Interrogation of the Patient. Galen often quotes Rufus of Ephesus in his own work. Both physicians studied anatomy at Alexandria.

Rufus of Ephesus used Aloe to treat various illnesses such as glaucoma, cataracts, melancholy and the plague. He also recommends its use in poor digestion and constipation, and points out that it modifies the secretion of bile, slows haemorrhages and is effective against ‘rebellious ulcers’.⁵

Around the 2nd century AD extensive work was carried out by an unknown Syriac physician, probably a Nestorian, who studied medicine in Alexandria and compiled an extensive Materia Medica called The Book of Medicines (also known as Syrian Anatomy, Pathology and Therapeutics). This physician was clearly a learned and distinguished man, a follower of Hippocrates who wrote clearly and simply. He drew strongly on Dioscorides’ work and the Papyrus Ebers. Some of the text was written originally in Greek and the first section is a series of lectures, to which is added the most detailed prescriptions, one of which is known as the Pills of Galen.

This remarkable work contains some of the most extensive early remedies using Aloe in medicine, and are too numerous to mention here in detail. They range from Aloe being used as a purgative to treating eye, ear and throat infections, stomach disorders, haemorrhaging, chest infection, liver and spleen diseases, menstrual disorders, inflammation, paralysis, pain and abscesses. Aloe is used in combination with a number of other ingredients.

By the end of the 2nd century AD, the plant then had become an established part of the European pharmacopoeia. Not only Galen but also other physicians such as Antyllus, Aretacus and others purported to use Aloe in their healing repertoire. It is recognized that the period between the time of Hippocrates and that of Galen heralds one of the biggest advances in European medicine, covering a period of 500 to 600 years.

It was largely thanks to the Jesuit priests of Spain that the use of Aloe spread throughout the Western world during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Jesuits were highly educated physicians and scholars and their knowledge of the classics was unsurpassed. They were familiar with the Greek and Roman medical texts and therefore were fully conversant with the medicinal and pharmacological properties of the Aloe plant. Furthermore, the Jesuit Fathers were ever practical. As Aloe grew with such ease in Spain and Portugal, they simply took the plant along with them as they accompanied explorers on their colonial expeditions, and planted it wherever they settled. It was an extremely useful plant as it was so hardy and adaptable. If Aloe did not grow locally, they planted it. Such was the high esteem in which they held the plant.

In this way, Aloe was transported to places as far afield as Jamaica, Haiti, Antigua, South and Central America through the spread of missionary establishments. It settled easily into hot semi-tropical climates, and was also grown on plantations by traders aware of its medicinal and commercial value for the European market. In some areas where it grew naturally, like Curaçao and Florida, the Jesuit priests expanded local knowledge of its medicinal uses by drawing on their classical understanding.

With the conquest of the Aztec empire by the Spaniards, the missionaries introduced their knowledge of the healing plant to the Indians of Central America and Mexico.

Aloe was introduced into the island of Barbados at the end of the 16th century (1596), probably by the Jesuits, or possibly by African slaves. It is this Aloe which bears the name Aloe barbadensis, formerly the accepted nomenclature for Aloe vera. Here, the commercial plantations of Aloe turned into a major industry for the medical market.

As the Jesuits had spread Aloe vera throughout the New World, and rumour has it that this was as far afield as the Philippines, so it was the Dutch who capitalized on the use of Aloe for medicinal purposes in Africa. Before the end of the 17th century, the Aloe had already been taken back to Holland by Dutch traders, and Cape Aloes were being cultivated in some of Europe’s finest gardens. At the Cape of Good Hope, Dutch colonists had laid out a garden for weary voyagers en route to India or China. The Jesuit Father Guy Tachard wrote in 1685 that this was one of the ‘most beautiful and curious gardens’ he had ever seen.⁶ It included at least 20 varieties of Aloe. It was nearly 100 years later that the British took to Importing Aloe sap from South Africa.

In the colonial rush to acquire good natural resources for medical plants, Britain undoubtedly was eclipsed by both Spain and Holland. Instead, it looked to the British colony of Georgia, now an American state, for medicinal plants. An Apothecaries Company had been set up with the aim of supplying drugs and other materials to Britain. In the Caribbean, however, the British were not so fortunate and were blocked by the Spanish in their search for medicinal plants, including Aloe vera.

As a result of their shortage of a natural Aloe source, it was the traders in the Cape who sold Aloe juice to the Dutch East India Company, who then exported it to Britain. In the first year of commercial production in 1761, over 90 kg (200 lb) of Aloe sap were sent to Britain. Unfortunately, South African Aloe was not considered as good as the Aloe from Barbados and Socotra. Its main use in South Africa was for rubbing into sprains, and easing rheumatic pain and sciatica. By contrast, in Europe it was used traditionally for the skin and as a digestive aid for the stomach.

The therapeutic and commercial worth of Aloe ferox is noted by Sir Joseph Hooker in the London Journal of Botany (1842–4). Hooker received his information from Charles Bunbury, FLS, who had accompanied the Governor of the Cape, Sir George Napier, on a journey from Cape Town through to Grahamstown, Fort Beaufort and back to Cape Town. Bunbury mentions that ‘Aloe ferox is the most important medicine plant of the Colony’ and that ‘exports of Aloes in one year amounted to £2,794’.⁷

As the commercial value of Aloe was being realized by merchants and traders, so there was added interest in the plant by the great collectors and botanists of Europe. These were frequently aristocratic or rich families who could indulge their collecting passion. Among these number the Prince of Salm-Dyck (1773–1861), who kept the finest collection of succulent plants in Europe, including Aloes. He also wrote a monograph of the Aloe family which appeared in seven parts. In Britain, many landed families had their own greenhouses and exotic plant collections. Both the Dukes of Devonshire and Bedford had especially fine collections.