Rose Oil
Julia Lawless
Often hailed as the 'queen of flowers', the rose has held a prominent place in the mythology of cultures both in the east and west for thousands of years.It is widely recognised as a powerful symbol of sovereignty, love, femininity, beauty and spiritual insight.Today, rose essential oil is as popular as ever, valued highly for both its perfumery and therapeutic uses. Safe, natural and easy to use, this book reveals how it can be used in the home for a multitude of different purposes including:• asthma• cardiac weakness• depression• hangovers• headaches• insomnia• pregnancy• skin care• stress
Copyright (#ulink_0452fc20-338e-5b4b-bf0b-c60900067a13)
Thorsons
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Published by Thorsons 1995
Copyright © Julia Lawless 1995
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Ebook Edition ©JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780008106188
Version: 2014-08-26
Dedication (#ulink_fefa86e9-ccd6-50ab-a746-8040d0e3e81d)
To ‘Didi’
Contents
Cover (#ud8f827ac-c266-5b04-a035-17557c5c8f28)
Title Page (#u8c7521e9-8b2c-5564-9396-4e11292ff08d)
Copyright (#ulink_1a265360-0e88-5b32-acdc-ec3bed27df20)
Dedication (#ulink_cef900fc-8294-5a7f-8296-1a5d2158a2e4)
Rose Oil – An Introduction (#ulink_fbd442c8-1282-5e74-9b5c-fac40355d905)
Part I: A Medical and Historical Background (#ulink_09baf080-5d44-57ed-b831-c54b6078a42b)
1 Legend, Myth and Symbolism (#ulink_4dac0f92-c3ba-5346-8f3b-6516aafbe8d0)
2 The Traditional Medicinal Uses of the Rose (#ulink_baf8e70a-d44b-5a04-b951-3ab66dbfb4bb)
3 The Rose as a Twentieth-Century Remedy (#ulink_258fc474-73af-58fc-a001-2e5515c46501)
4 Cultivation, Production and Quality Control (#litres_trial_promo)
5 A Summary of the Properties and Applications of Rose Oil (#litres_trial_promo)
6 Methods of Use, Safety Data and Storage Precautions (#litres_trial_promo)
Part II: A – Z of Health and Beauty Applications: (#litres_trial_promo)
acne/blemished skin; (#litres_trial_promo)ageing/mature skin; (#litres_trial_promo)amenorrhoea (absent periods); (#litres_trial_promo)anorexia/loss of appetite; (#litres_trial_promo)anxiety; (#litres_trial_promo)asthma; (#litres_trial_promo)blepharitis; (#litres_trial_promo)bruises; (#litres_trial_promo)children; (#litres_trial_promo)cold sores; (#litres_trial_promo)conjunctivitis/ophthalmia; (#litres_trial_promo)cuts and wounds; (#litres_trial_promo)depression; (#litres_trial_promo)dermatitis and eczema; (#litres_trial_promo)dry/cracked skin; (#litres_trial_promo)dysmenorrhoea (painful periods); (#litres_trial_promo)faintness and dizziness; (#litres_trial_promo)haemorrhoids; (#litres_trial_promo)hangover; (#litres_trial_promo)hay fever; (#litres_trial_promo)headaches; (#litres_trial_promo)heat rash; (#litres_trial_promo)high blood-pressure; (#litres_trial_promo)immune system (to strengthen); (#litres_trial_promo)infectious illness; (#litres_trial_promo)insomnia; (#litres_trial_promo)leucorrhoea and pruritis; (#litres_trial_promo)menopausal problems; (#litres_trial_promo)menorrhagia (heavy periods); (#litres_trial_promo)menstruation problems; (#litres_trial_promo)migraine; (#litres_trial_promo)mouth ulcers; (#litres_trial_promo)palpitations; (#litres_trial_promo)perfume uses; (#litres_trial_promo)perspiration (excessive); (#litres_trial_promo)pregnancy and childbirth; (#litres_trial_promo)premenstrual tension (PMT); (#litres_trial_promo)scars; (#litres_trial_promo)sensitive skin; (#litres_trial_promo)sexual problems; (#litres_trial_promo)skin care; (#litres_trial_promo)stress; (#litres_trial_promo)thread veins; (#litres_trial_promo)varicose veins (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix A: Different Types of Rose Species (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendix B: Comparative Constituents of Rose Oil (#litres_trial_promo)
References (#litres_trial_promo)
Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)
Useful Addresses (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Other Books By (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Rose Oil: An Introduction (#ulink_d08016ef-1d30-512b-b9fc-ac05f9fec61a)
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
Walter de la Mare, All That’s Past
When did the passion for the rose begin? Fossil studies have shown that wild roses were already blooming 40 million years ago! Simple rose images have been identified on murals and in sculptural relief forms dating from the earliest historical times. The oldest of these is depicted on the wall of the excavated Palace of Knossos in Crete, believed to be more than 4,000 years old. A rose is also stamped on one of the oldest coins which has been unearthed, a 2000 BC Hittite artefact. However, these ancient specimens are difficult to identify with botanical accuracy because of the basic nature of the design.
No such doubt exists, however, with respect to a wreath of five-petalled flowers which was discovered in an Egyptian tomb (circa AD 26) by British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie in 1888:
In the dry desert air, the wreath’s petals had shrivelled, but they still kept their colour, and when placed in warm water, the blossoms seemed to come back to life. Buds swelled, and the pink petals spread, unfolding to reveal the knot of golden threads at the centre just as they must have been on the morning of the funeral. A botanist at Cambridge had little trouble in identifying Petrie’s flowers as roses, specimens of ‘Rosa richardii’ (R. sancta), a species already known as ‘the Holy Rose of Abyssinia’ because at that time it was still a fixture of the Coptic Christian churchyards in that country.
Similar remains have also been found in graves throughout Middle Egypt, together with frescoes and scraps of fabric portraying simple roses with five petals. It is significant that the rose was one of the flowers sacred to the Egyptian Goddess Isis, guardian of love and destiny, who has been worshipped for more than 5,000 years! Signs of an ancient rose cult have also been found in India and in Syria – even the name Syria comes from the word ‘suri’, meaning ‘land of roses’. The ‘Holy Rose’ still grows in Egypt today, and can also be found in remote areas of Northern Ethiopia (the former Abyssinia). In 1920, a monk reported finding a rose growing in an Ethiopian mountain village at an altitude of 8,000 feet!
Trade in roses also became established at a very early stage in history. The royal groves of Ur in the Euphrates–Tigris region have revealed that the Sumerian King Sargon (2648–2630 BC) returned from a campaign bringing ‘vines, figs and roses’. Caravans wandered from the rivers of Babylonia, taking their cargo with them right across Egypt to North Africa. Arab nomads played a vital role in the distribution of the rose not only throughout the Middle East, but also later by bringing it to Europe.
Botanically speaking, however, it is difficult to locate the exact origin of the first wild rose because the early records are far from complete. What is clear is that from very early times there existed several distinct species of rose which were distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, having two main centres – one in Central Asia and the other in Western Europe. These became known as the ‘Old’ rose varieties because they formed the basis of all the subsequent hybrids, or ‘New’ roses.
The historical division between ‘Old’ and ‘New’ roses is generally taken to be the year 1800, due to the influence of France’s Empress Josephine. From 1808 and 1814 the Empress, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, established a rose garden at Malmaison (outside Paris) which was unsurpassed. She obtained all the known roses of the time, including the newly arrived Asiatic and Chinese varieties. Their cultivation and propagation became an inspiration to rose-growers throughout the world, and formed the basis for the subsequent hybridization of the innumerable rose varieties.
Since then, roses have been bred as carefully as racehorses, and many new varieties have been developed. Today there are numerous books available on the cultivation of garden roses containing hundreds of lavish, glossy plates illustrating the diversity, beauty and allure of the modern (and often scentless) ‘New’ rose.
In recent years, however, there has a been a nostalgic return to the appeal of the ‘Old’ scented rose varieties. Their fragrance, which had often suffered in the pursuit of the perfect form, has also begun to be reevaluated. The most significant of these original and highly scented ‘Old’ roses, particularly regarding their subsequent cultivation and (highly successful) hybridization for the production of essential oils, are the following:
Rosa gallica (R. rubra) – the ‘Gallic Rose’
Rosa damascena – the ‘Damask Rose’
Rosa centifolia – the ‘Cabbage Rose’
The Gallic Rose
The natural habitat of the Gallic Rose is thought to have been Iran (formerly Persia) and the land between the Black and the Caspian Seas – though its real roots are lost in antiquity. Like the ‘Holy Rose’, the Gallic Rose originally blossomed in its natural wild state as a simple flower with five petals – mostly of a deep pink or ‘rosy’-red colour. Later, how-ever, R. gallica also came to exist in a whole range of different forms or sub-species, the best known being R. gallica var. officinalis – the ‘Apothecary Rose’ or the ‘Red Rose’, a shrub of 90 cm to 1.5 m (3 to 5 ft) high with very fragrant, semi-double deep crimson flowers and yellow anthers (centre). In early times, the petals of this variety were often made into a fragrant powder valued for its pharmaceutical properties. After the Middle Ages it also became known as the ‘French Rose’ or the ‘Rose of Provins’ because it was grown in high quantities in the French region of Provence, mainly for use in perfumery. Varieties of the Gallic Rose are still used for the production of essential oils, for example by the British pioneer microbiologist, Peter Wilde.
The Damask Rose
The Damask Rose (Rosa damascena) – so called because it was presumed to have been brought originally from Damascus in Syria – bears pink or red, very fragrant double flowers with up to 36 petals each, borne on arching stems reaching to 2 m (7 ft) long. This was the rose most used by the early Arab perfume makers, who introduced it to Europe. It is still used to produce a very high quality essential oil, ‘attar of rose’ (and absolute), mainly for use in perfumery. Today it is cultivated on a large scale in Bulgaria and Turkey, and to a lesser extent in Russia, India and Iran. It too has been recorded in many different forms or sub-species, notably the 30-petalled variety, ‘Trigintipetala’.
The Cabbage Rose
The Cabbage Rose or ‘Hundred-leaved Rose’ is not, strictly speaking, an ‘Old’ rose despite its long history, being a complex hybrid between the Gallic Rose, the Damask Rose, the wild ‘Dog Rose’, and the ‘Musk Rose’ (see below). Its origins are obscure, though it has been found growing wild in the forests of the Caucasus, where double-flowered specimens are common. It has been called the ‘Painter’s Rose’ because it appears in the artwork of so many of the Old Masters. It is a handsome, bushy shrub, generally 90 cm to 1.5 m (3 to 5 ft) high, bearing large blooms with up to 100 petals each, which can be white through to dark red. It produces a rich, sweet-scented oil or absolute for which it is widely cultivated in Turkey and North Africa (Morocco and Tunis). For centuries a type of Cabbage Rose has been grown in the region of Grasse in France and known as the ‘Rose de Mai’ – a hybrid between R. centifolia and R. gallica. This variety can grow to a height of 2 m (7 ft) and has pink to rose-purple flowers. The Cabbage Rose has subsequently given rise to innumerable sub-species, including the ‘Moss Rose’.
Other ancient varieties which are still used for the production of essential oils, but on a smaller scale, include the ‘Dog Rose’ (Rosa canina), ‘Sweet Briar’ (R. rubiginosa), the ‘Musk Rose’ (R. moscatta), the ‘Tea Rose’ (R. indica), the ‘White Rose’ (Rosaxalba), and the ‘Japanese (or Chinese) Rose’ (R. rugosa).
Note: See Appendix A (#litres_trial_promo) for a more detailed description of these rose species.
PART 1 (#ulink_89c6ffe7-5473-5b89-a395-85bfa17ac174)
A Medical and Historical Background (#ulink_89c6ffe7-5473-5b89-a395-85bfa17ac174)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_7d0b20ff-41b5-55c8-b7fd-7346e70f1c69)
Legend, Myth and Symbolism (#ulink_7d0b20ff-41b5-55c8-b7fd-7346e70f1c69)
Red rose, proud rose, and rose of all my days
Come near me while I sing thy ancient ways…
W. B. Yeats ‘The Rose upon the Rood of Time’
For thousands of years the rose has been prized by all cultures alike – indeed, throughout the ages no flower has enjoyed such favour! Classical texts from both East and West contain numerous references to the rose, and a whole range of myths has sprung up and flourished regarding its origins and symbolism. The symbolism of the rose is perhaps one of the richest and most complex associated with any plant, with a universal appeal that transcends time and cultures. As a powerful image of the heart or soul of humanity, the rose has always represented ‘love’, ‘beauty’ and ‘divinity’ along with many other attributes.
‘By thy scent my soul is ravished…’ wrote the poet Sadi. He, like many other great Persian writers, saw the rose not only as an object of great physical beauty but also as a symbol of spiritual attainment and transcendent desire. In the Avesta, the sacred book of Persia which forms the basis of one of the world’s oldest religions, the rose is honoured as ‘a messenger of the garden of souls’. Rumi (the great thirteenth-century Sufi mystic and poet) called the rose a ‘wise loveliness’, and a manifestation of the experience of the eternal ‘Beloved’:
Like a rose, I smile with all my body, not only with my mouth,
For I am – without myself – alone with the King of the World
Rumi, Divan-e-Kabir
Among the Sufis, the experience of the sacred was intimately associated with the form and scent of the rose, and the Persian alchemist and mystic Avicenna dedicated a whole book to the virtues of his favoured plant. According to one Persian legend, the nightingale fell in love with the white rose and flew down to embrace it. But she pierced her breast upon its sharp thorns, and from the drops of blood falling on the earth there grew the first deep crimson rose:
… And above all, the repeated splendours of glowing dawns, the profusion of rose gardens, white roses and red roses, the shades of the rose bushes, the divine presence flashing in the brilliance of a red rose.
Ancient Persia is thought to be the birthplace of the cultivated rose, and the first place where roses were planted in beautifully laid out gardens. When the Moslem Arabs conquered Persia in the sixth century, they were so enamoured with the cultivated roses which they found growing there that Islam adopted the rose as central to its own tradition. Indeed, according to Arabic legend, when the prophet Muhammad was taken to heaven a drop of his sweat fell to earth and this became the first rose! In another story, roses come not from the prophet but from the perspiration of a lady, Joun, whose skin is white at dawn but rosy at midday. Later, as the Moslem religion spread to large areas of the known world, the love of the rose went too.
As early as 900 BC, Homer described in the Iliad that the shield of Achilles was decorated with roses – as were the shields of the ancient Persian warriors. In addition, the custom which is still known today of strewing roses on the graves of the dead can be traced back to this period. In ancient Greece the rose was held sacred to Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. According to Greek legend, the first rose grew out of the white foam that covered Aphrodite at her birth. For the Greeks, the red rose is said to have issued from the blood of her beloved Adonis after he was attacked by a wild boar – the word ‘rosa’ derives from the Greek word ‘rodon’, meaning red:
… the crown jewel of the flowers, and the royal purple of wise men, the mirror of beauty. Full of love she is Aphrodite’s servant; with fragrant leaves shining brightly she sways above the foliage bathing in the smiles of Zephyr.
Achilles Tatios, 139 BC
As the cult of the rose spread over the whole of ancient Greece and beyond, so did the mythology surrounding it. One of the oldest Roman stories is of Flora, who upon finding the corpse of a beautiful nymph, a daughter of the Dryads, transformed her body into the first rose with the assistance of Venus and the Graces. Apollo then blessed the flower, Bacchus supplied the nectar, Vertumnus the perfume, while Pomona gave her fruit and Flora crowned her with beauty. According to another legend, the first rose was said to have originally been white in colour, the red varieties coming into being when a thorn pierced the foot of Venus – her blood staining the petals crimson.
Although the rose had been revered by many early civilizations, with the Romans worship of the rose took on unsurpassed proportions. Indeed, no other culture has been as obsessed with the rose in a literal sense, as that of ancient Rome … they even created a holiday, ‘Rosalia’, to consummate their passion for the flower!
Roses were strewn at public ceremonies and banquets; rosewater bubbled through the emperor’s fountains and the public baths surged with it; in the public amphitheaters, crowds sat under sun awnings steeped in rose perfume; rose petals were used as pillow stuffings; people wore garlands of roses in their hair; they ate rose pudding; their medicines, love potions, and aphrodisiacs all contained roses. No Bacchanalia, the Romans’ official orgy, was complete without an excess of roses… At one banquet, Nero … spent the equivalent of fifty thousand pounds just on roses – and one of his guests smothered to death under a shower of rose petals.
In 220 AD, Athenaeus mentions that rose petals were strewn eight inches deep upon the ground in Cleopatra’s private chambers when she first met Mark Antony! In the early years of the Roman Empire, the rose was linked with Venus, the Goddess of love – but in latter years, as the Empire declined and decayed, it came to stand for vice and immoral behaviour. After the fall of the Empire, the Roman Catholic Church thus condemned the rose as a heathen flower. The Church was particularly contemptuous of the old pagan custom of offering wreaths of roses to the dead:
If they are blessed, they do not need them – and if they are lost, they won’t have any pleasure in them!
But the rose was not an image that could be wiped clean from human consciousness. The custom of offering roses to the dead persisted, and since the symbolism of the rose could not be eradicated, it gradually became incorporated into early Christian mythology. The red rose became the symbol of Jesus’ blood – the five petals representing the five wounds of Christ – and a sign of martyrs and saints. The custom of decorating churches with roses and carving roses over the entrance to the confessional as an emblem of discretion also dates from Roman times. In the Roman story, the rose was given by Cupid as a bribe to Harpocrates, the god of Silence. Henceforth, a rose was suspended above Roman banqueting tables to indicate that anything said beneath it was to be held in strictest confidence – the origin of the expression ‘sub-rosa’.
To the early Christian mystics, the rose (especially the white rose) was also associated with the Virgin Mary and the ideal of ‘purity’ or ‘divine love’. The Madonna is often depicted in a garden of roses in icon paintings. Here, the rose indicates Mary’s love for the child Jesus, while more profoundly it suggests the love required for the nurturing of the Christ principle within. According to tradition, the Virgin appeared to St Dominic bearing a chaplet of roses, and the first rosary was made in commemoration of this vision. Rosaries originally consisted of 165 dried, carefully rolled up rose petals, sometimes darkened with lampblack as a preservative. One of the oldest Maria hymns says:
Fresh rose, pure rose, chaste rose,
Without thorns, rose flowering,
Fruits bearing, burning red,
More than a rose, whiter than a lily.
During the following centuries, roses became more and more widespread as the Crusaders returned to Europe bringing with them new and old varieties. In the days of chivalry, a chaplet of roses was granted to gallant knights for acts of bravery, and the image of the rose became associated with sovereignty. Different types of roses were increasingly used in royal heraldry, as in Britain’s ‘Wars of the Roses’, the thirteenth-century feud between the House of York (the white rose) and the House of Lancaster (the red rose). The Tudor rose of Elizabeth I bore the motto Rosa sine spina (‘a rose without a thorn’), and the wild dog rose (Rosa canina) remains the royal flower of England. The British King or Queen is still anointed at the coronation ceremony with a ‘holy oil’ containing rose essence, the recipe for which dates back to the twelfth century.
During the Middle Ages, the rose naturally became the favoured flower of the famous ‘troubadours’ and often featured in their love poetry:
Maiden may I go with thee to thy rose garden?
I would lead thee, sweet love, to the place where the red roses grow.
In Elizabethan times the rose was also used as an image of the transient nature of love, as in the well-known verse by Herrick:
‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…’
It was fashionable at this time to use a posy of flowers to convey messages of the heart: a red rose meant passion; a white rose, purity or innocence; a yellow rose stood for jealousy or falsehood! A single red rose is still offered today as a token of love. It is remarkable that over thousands of years, the rose’s symbolic meaning has remained virtually intact, representing the most profound and far-reaching ideals of human aspiration:
The single rose is, in essence, a symbol of completion, of consummate achievement and perfection.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_0bd60acf-6282-5fc8-96f0-b116ae1f4362)
The Traditional Medicinal Uses of the Rose (#ulink_0bd60acf-6282-5fc8-96f0-b116ae1f4362)
The rose distils a healing balm,
the beating pulse of pain to calm.
Anacreon
Roses have been used medicinally since the earliest times. In ancient Persia, the birthplace of the rose, rosewater was regarded as something of a panacea, while oils and fats saturated with rose petals were used in religious ceremonies and for balms of all kinds. A paste of pounded rose petals mixed with honey was taken as a remedy for angina and tuberculosis, while an infusion of dried flowers was used as a tea to alleviate diarrhoea and (by women) leucorrhoea.
Preparations made from roses also feature strongly in traditional Chinese, Indian, Egyptian and Arabian medicine. In China, the flowers of a highly scented variety, Rosa rugosa (‘mei gui hua’) are still used in the form of a decoction as a blood tonic and to help stimulate stagnant liver energy, or ‘qi’ (the Chinese word for energy). The petals are also used for digestive or menstrual irregularities, especially to help relieve heavy periods. A rose extract and rose oil made from Rosa rugosa are also used in China, as Li Shih-Chen describes:
Its nature is cooling, its taste is sweet with a slight bitterishness, and it acts especially on the spleen and liver, promoting the circulation of the blood. It is prescribed in the form of an extract for haematemesis, and the flowers are used in all diseases of the liver, to scatter abscesses, and in blood diseases generally… Essence of Rose is made by distilling the flowers of Rosa rugosa. Its medicinal action is upon the liver, stomach, and blood. It drives away melancholy.
In India, likewise, the rose has a long history of traditional usage. In Ayurvedic medicine, Rosa damascena is thought to have a regulating and revitalizing effect, being particularly beneficial for the heart, eyes and the skin:
It is a laxative, and a tonic; and increases semen, and enhances the beauty of the complexion. It has a combined bitter and sweet taste. It is a digestive, restores the balance of ‘tridoshas’ (primary qualities) and it is highly efficacious in blood impurities.
In ancient Egypt, a rose unguent was prepared by infusing the flowers in fat for use in the treatment of various skin complaints and as an ingredient in cosmetics and perfumes. Rose oil together with vinegar and chicory juice was considered an effective cure for headaches. However, it was the early Arab physicians who were the first to perfect the distillation of rose oil as we know it today. They employed the oil to combat an almost endless list of complaints, including:
… headache, sun and heat stroke, hangover, migraine, stomatitis, loss of appetite, gastritis, gastric ulcer, constipation, ulcerous colitis, haemorrhoids, fissures, hepatic diseases, eye affections, dental caries, opium intoxication, insect and snake bites, wounds that did not heal properly, itching and burns.
At one time, the rose also held a prominent place in the Western medical tradition. As early as the fourth century BC, Hippocrates (the ‘Father of Medicine’), described how a perfumed ‘rose oil’ was prepared in Anatolia by macerating fresh roses in olive oil. In addition, he prescribed rose medicaments specifically for gynaecological and obstetric conditions. Then, in the first century AD, Dioscorides compiled the first extensive Materia Medica by drawing on traditional Greek and Egyptian herbal lore … a work which was regarded as an authoritative guide well into the seventeenth century. In this volume, the rose is recommended as a remedy for a wide variety of complaints, including headache, eye and ear disorders, and gastro-intestinal illnesses.
In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder (a Roman contemporary of Dioscorides writing in AD 76) claimed that the rose (R. gallica), prepared in various ways, could be used in the treatment of 32 conditions. These included inflammation of the eyes, the ears and the mouth, stomach ache, toothache, insomnia, the healing of wounds, and for what he called ‘purification of the mind’. Pliny also described how the wealthy Romans filled their baths with rose petals to keep the body young and alluring – a method also employed as a cure for hangover! In a preparation known as diapasmata, or ‘powdered perfume’, petals were dried and finely ground then sprinkled on the body to inhibit perspiration.
Throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, the Gallic Rose was the principal variety grown in monastery gardens; the dried petals were commonly available from the apothecary – thus the name ‘Apothecary Rose’. The dried flowers were mainly used as herb to be strewn on the ground in place of carpets, for pot pourris, or as a herbal ‘simple’.
Roses were in fact prepared in a vast and ingenious variety of ways: an ointment of roses was used to soothe headaches; a syrup to ‘comfort the heart’; rose leaves mixed with mint were applied as a poultice to ‘quiet the over-heated spirits’; infusions of rose leaves and petals, or the petals ingested in honey, were employed as a remedy for coughs, while a rose conserve was prescribed for liver complaints. Rose vinegar was recommended for several disorders including nose bleeds, indigestion, headaches and hangovers, while rosewater was used to soothe sore eyes. At one time, the roots of the wild Dog Rose (R. canina) were even used to treat those afflicted by rabies – ‘the bites of mad dogs’. Rose oil also had its uses:
In the Middle Ages, physicians such as Walafried Stabon of Reichenau, Odo of Maine and Arnold of Villanova used rose oil for complaints ranging from infected wounds to diarrhoea. It was also used in various applications as a treatment for heart diseases, having a cardionic effect and reducing heart trembling.
Nicholas Culpeper, the well-known British herbalist and astrologer writing in the early seventeenth century, dedicated more space to the rose than to any other herb:
Red roses strengthen the heart, the stomach, the liver, and the retentive faculty; they mitigate the pains that arise from heat, cool inflammations, procure rest and sleep, stay both the whites and reds in women … red rosewater is cooling, cordial, refreshing, quickening the weak and faint spirits, used either in meats or broths or to wash the temples, to smell at the nose, or to smell the sweet vapours out of a perfume pot, or cast into a hot fire-shovel. It is of much use against the redness and inflammations of the eyes to bathe therewith and the temples of the head … oil of roses is used to cool hot inflammation or swellings … also put into ointments and plasters that are cooling and binding...
The Damask Rose, according to Culpeper, was in addition a ‘cephalic’, being uplifting to the mind on account of its fragrance. Gerarde, an early European herbalist (1545–1612) tells us that rosewater ‘bringeth sleep which also the fresh roses themselves provoke through their sweet and pleasant smell’. Robert Lovell, writing later in the seventeenth century, also devoted several pages to the rose, and he too made particular note of the effect of its scent:
Oleum rosarum (the oil of roses) is a good perfume; a drop or two cheres the heart, brain, animal and vitall spirits.
It is clear that all the old herbalists were in agreement that roses were very valuable medicinal agents – the Gallic Rose especially being highly esteemed for its cooling, astringent, tonic, regulating and revitalizing effects. However, the eighteenth century saw a decline in traditional remedies as belief in a scientific approach to medicine took hold of the public imagination. Chemical drugs replaced the naturally derived herbal ‘simples’ and the medical pharmacopoeias became increasingly filled with synthetically-derived substitutes. Over the following centuries the therapeutic value of the rose was consequently gradually eroded in favour of its perfumery use and purely decorative appeal. It is only in the twentieth century that the traditional therapeutic values of the rose have been reassessed!
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_6898a14f-fd98-5fef-901d-5a2de577b1bc)
The Rose as a Twentieth-Century Remedy (#ulink_6898a14f-fd98-5fef-901d-5a2de577b1bc)
A rose is a rose is a rose …
Gertrude Stein, from ‘I am a Rose’ in Sacred Emily
Despite its rich traditional heritage as a folk remedy, by the beginning of the twentieth century the rose had almost vanished from Western medicine. In 1907, the rose growers of the Provence region in France obtained a government warrent that their unguents derived from roses would be used in all French public and military hospitals. In Britain, however, only the wild or common Dog Rose (R. canina) retained its medicinal uses. During the Second World War, for example, it was common for children to be dosed with rose hip syrup, due to its high vitamin C content. The chopped fruits are also still occasionally used as a folk remedy in the form of a decoction for a variety of disorders:
… two and a half teaspoons finely cut fruit per cup of water, boiled for 10 minutes to achieve optimum vitamin C content, several times a day against constipation, colds, gall disorders, and disorders of the kidneys, and bladder; also as a spring tonic and against general exhaustion.
Red rose petals from R. gallica were listed in the British Herbal Pharmacopoeia until the 1930s, mainly as a mild astringent and to flavour other medicines. By 1983, however, only the hips of R. canina are mentioned in connection with gastritis, diarrhoea and poldipsia, and as ‘a dietary supplement as a natural source of vitamin C, together with small amounts of A and B vitamins’.
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