Herb of the Month
Aloe Vera
By Louise Dunlap
Many of us who keep house plants have a pot
of Aloe vera on our windowsills. There are elegant ornamental
varieties but all have fleshy long spikes for leaves that arise
from a center point at soil level--often in beautiful patterns.
"Baby" plants start up easily near the main root, so an
aloe growing alone in a pot rarely remains so. It is very easy to
transplant the "babies" with their long stringy roots,
to give to friends.
The "skin" of aloe leaf spikes is
usually dotted with little white protuberances, not the sharp spines
of the agave or the cactus--although, like cactus, aloes have a
wet and pulpy flesh under their protective skin. Aloe pulp is so
juicy that it flows actively out of its "package" when
the leaf is broken or cut. Long ago I read that this gooey, gelatinous
substance was a good treatment for burns. Since then I've always
kept a plant handy to my kitchen, so I can quickly break off a spike
and spread the pulp on a burned finger if necessary. I didn't realize
until recently that aloes have a rich global history and many other
uses in nutrition and healing.
One day this spring, my Puerto Rican neighbor
and fellow tenant activist was sitting down with me for a cup of
tea when she exclaimed over the huge aloe near my table. It reminded
her of her Caribbean childhood treat--feasting on the pulp of this
plant, with spoonfuls of sugar. Aloes, she told me, are a much respected
health remedy on the island. It made sense. I remembered reading
that Christopher Columbus reported "an endless quantity of
aloes" on his first trip to the Caribbean and carried some
back to Spain with him. Another friend with Caribbean roots once
told me he drinks the bottled aloe juice now available in many health
stores, when he needs a cure for the "blahs." To explore
what my friends had to say, I consulted the herb books.
The first thing I found was some controversy
about origins. Most say that aloes--with as many as 350 species--are
indigenous to eastern and southern Africa, with evidence of China
trading for African aloes as early as the 6th century and much earlier
use in India and the Mediterranean. They say aloes came to the Caribbean
with the slave trade and have been cultivated there ever since.
Early on, they were also carried into the U.S. South and shared
with the Seminole, Choctaw, and Creek people by runaway slaves.
This theory seems plausible since aloes transplant (and travel)
so easily and since Columbus was notorious for his inaccurate botany.
(One author says his shipload of medicinal aloes turned out to be
a species of agave with no therapeutic--or commercial--value.)
Western and Eastern herbalists find benefits
in a tincture made from resin in the "skin" of aloe leaves
as well as in the pulpy gel within the skin. In eastern terms, the
tincture is taken internally for moving energy (or Qi),especially
releasing energy blocks in menstrual flow or the bowels (when taken
as a laxative). It also stimulates appetite and digestion and clears
parasites, reduces tumors, and heals fungal infections, sores, and
burns. The gel has an even wider range of uses: spread on the surface
of the skin, it is said to reduce inflammation and infection, stop
bleeding, promote tissue repair, moisten and relieve irritation,
and generally benefit the skin. Reports have it that both Cleopatra
and Josephine (Napoleon's wife) used Aloe vera pulp as a
beauty cream. Specific conditions said to benefit from aloe gel
are diaper rash, eczema, poison ivy, inflammation of the gums and
dental abscesses, not to mention athlete's foot as well as minor
cuts and burns.
With its ancient and global history, Aloe
vera may also help us greatly with the afflictions of the 21st
century. A doctor in New Jersey says aloe eye drops absorb damage
from ultraviolet rays and help with the cataracts that people in
the extreme southern hemisphere are already beginning to experience
with the thinning of the ozone layer. Another doctor is exploring
an aloe treatment for skin cancer. Both U.S. and former Soviet doctors
have used aloe gel to treat radiation burns--originating from cancer
treatment as well as toxic exposure.
If you are experimenting with Aloe vera
on your own, there are several conditions during which you should
avoid this herb. Because it is such a powerful releaser of blocks,
it should not be used internally during pregnancy, for hemorrhoids,
or where there is degeneration of the liver or gall bladder. And
aloes should not be taken continuously over a long period of time
due to a mild chronic toxicity when too much enters our systems.
This is an herb to try for a week or so at a time, not an every
day crutch.
Aloes have been a comfort and a healing agent
for peoples in suffering as dire as slavery, and they are potential
allies as we face the increasing toxicity of the 21st century. However,
they also have many immediately practical uses. As summer begins
and you plan picnics and camping trips, it might be worth carrying
along a small aloe transplant in a paper cup, or at least a thick
fleshy "leaf" or two (which keep just fine without refrigeration
for several days). The gel from a broken leaf may help heal not
only burned fingers from your camp-stove or barbecue, but minor
cuts and even poison ivy. And, believe it or not, the books say
Aloe vera gel is a natural insect repellent. If there is
any truth to this at all--and the "vera" in the
name means "truth"--it should make being outdoors in mosquito
country a lot more peaceful. I am certainly going to try it.
Works consulted: Peter Holmes, The Energetics
of Western Herbs; Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs; and
Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise.
Louise Dunlap teaches yoga and writing,
and is working on a book called Writing for Social Change.
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