Julien-Joseph Virey (1775-1846) ,Founder of modern Osmology

  Marie-Antoinette, she loved herbs.and flower scents..

 far from being the superficial woman she was declared to be..

Origins of  Aromatherapy

Modern Aromatherapy ,started  with the French

Ingénieur,chimiste ,René-Maurice Gattefossé  in 1937.

   

   Unfortunately most  writers on Aromatherapy ignore the background

   on how  Maurice Gattefossé  came to start the movement ,They seem happy

    to  believe  the  "urban Myths" that every commercial company

    and some  of the   popular authors  seem   to spread. Maybe there is

    a need  for simple  stories  we can believe in ?

   The famous narrative of the laboratory  fire (1910),burning his hand

    and  "miraculously "  being saved by Lavender -oil   is repeated ad nauseam.

    Nobody seems to wonder ,if really  a person  trained in  chemistry

    and technology  of aromatic plant extraction ,who  starts a

   Perfumery - Journal , will need the experience  of a  lavender  -

   "miracle-cure ?


    His journal ,"la Parfumerie moderne"  had the declared target

    to promote  french aromatic plant  producers and Gattefossé

    was one of its founders..

    We are also made to believe that  in these  days, nobody knew about

    essential oils  and their therapeutic value.

    Gattefossé really  did lots of  extraordinary  things, he can be considered

     a cultural hero.  There is of course a mythical dimension to Aromatherapy.

      -  But why understate the existing  popular and scientific knowledge existing

       in the 19th century  and around the  beginning of the20th  century ?

       Many Aromatherapists actually do not know that  there is a rich  background

       and  that long before Gattefossé there was Osmology and Osphrésiology.

 
     Gattefossé himself was not pretending to start all this .He knew very well

     how much he owed  to earlier scientists and the empirical users of

    essential oils. It is only the  mix of  pseudo-scientific   lore 

    and commercial interest that reduces the rich history of Aromatherapy.

    We need to know the  authentic roots  to  start to develop

    a  genuine  identity. Without defending the real identity ,

   Aromatherapy will  be  absorbed by  medical science.
   
  

   So let us look at the man  who started systenatic Osmology.

         

  J.-J. Virey  published 1812  for the first time a  systematic text 

on  Osmology ,treating  odours,essential oils and resins  

in their medical, psychological and anthropological  dimension.

There was one earlier  publication  by Jean-Simon de Hillier  ,

 a medical doctor from Verdun (Lorraine) . He used for the 

first time the name "Osmology" ( in 1623) and it speaks clearly

about the therapeutic  use of fragrance materials aganst  "miasmic

disease.", meaning epidemies like the plague.. The  book  deals with  

aromatic herbs and scents against  the menace of  plague n Lorraine

Both men have used  ideas by the father of  greek herbal medicine,

Theophrastes, who was  the first person to write a treatise on smells  : 

 "de odoribus"  . Shortly after de Hillier,there  was an italian writer,

Petrus Servius, who wrote  another "de odoribus" -treaty( in  1641. ) 

He lived in Rome , was a friend of Gabriel Naudé- possibly an influence

on Louis XIII and Richelieu -both  very interested   in   fragrance - therapy

with aromatic plants ,fumigations etc.

Saint Hillier  was also medical advisor  to the king, Louis XIII.


Through the middle ages ,by  absorbing arabic medical knowledge,

there  was always interest   and use of aromatic  plants, fumigations

,inhalations etc. The school of Salerno  helped   to spread  this

traditional knowledge  and  Charlemagne tried to civilise the

germanic  people  through importing  more than 80 aromatic

and  medicinal herbs (Capitulare  de Villis)

The vision of these days was  expressed  in the  poem "Hortulus"

 by Walahfrid Strabo ,a monk from the  Cloister  Reichenau

at the Lake of Constance.


In Italy, Renaissance scholars ,especiallly Marsilio Ficino

expressed the spiritual  power of fragrance.He saw them as a way

to reintegration with  the higher spheres. The neoplatonic movement

and the courts of the Medici, the "love-court" of  Cardinal Bembo

and Catherine Cornaro , queen of  Cyprus ,expressed  this  lifestyle.

Painters  like Giorgione and  Tizian  give us an insight

how sophisticated these people were.

Two famous italian books  at the end of the  Renaissance period

resumed the  high standards of italian perfumers and doctors .

The "Book of  the Secrets  of   Master Alexis ,the "Piedmontese"

and  Signora Isabella Cortese, divulging her "secrets... It is believed

that through  Catherine de Medicis  many aromatic specialists

came to France and helped to  start  the french supremacy

in  fragrance  preparations.. 

Grasse became the center of  the perfumery world .

It  concentrated  the "savoir-faire" which we find in the 18th  to

19th century Distillers,perfumers and  finally in Osmology

and Aromatherapy..

So , long before René-Maurice Gattefossé  founded modern

Aromatherapy, Osmology  was already looking back on a

profound  tradition  with an empirical basis.

   

  

                                                                                                 

                                                                               that"s me  ..