ALOE
VERA
Do you know what
Aristotle said to Alexander the Great in 325 B.C.? He said come here
Alex, I want to show you something. And he showed him a plant. It
was the Socotrine aloe. Why? Because Aristotle had learned that the
juice of the plant could act as a purgative, that is it would just
make you expel bodily fluids and in those days they thought that such
expulsion would also lead to the elimination of illness.
Well, I'm not
sure how much Alexander was interested in that. But today we certainly
are interested in aloe. Not specifically the one that Alex was shown,
but the aloe that comes from Barbados. Aloe Vera. Why? Because it
has a long folkloric tradition of use as a healing agent on cuts,
on sunburns and on abrasions. Does it really work? Well we actually
do have some clinical evidence that the juice of the plant does deliver.
We also have some evidence from the laboratory that the juice of the
plant promotes normal cell growth which is great.
But if you look
at the internet these days there are many websites that claim that
the juice of the aloe vera plant has all kinds of healing properties
for ulcers, etc. Well, I am always skeptical. Beware of webmasters
bearing gifts that sound too good to be true because we just don't
have the evidence about the internal healing properties of aloe. Also,
putting it on cuts and sunburns -- that's great, but deep cuts such
as a C-section may actually respond more poorly than not putting anything
on at all.
But aloe is certainly
an interesting substance, it's been around a long time. The ancient
Egyptians mentioned it 1500 BC in the classic Ebers papyrus, a pharmaceutical
document. So you might as well get one, keep it at home, if you do
get a cut, do get a burn, just cut the plant, squeeze on the juice.
If it doesn't work well, at least you'll still have a very pretty
plant in the house.
