9.
"The Healing Power of Essential Oils" by Rodolphe Balz
translated from the German edn. "Les huilles essentielles"
Lotus Press USA 1996
This book is well planned & laid out, but in my value judgment it
is severely let down by the authors' poor grasp of modern chemistry and
microbiology. There is also a tendency interpret scientific fact from an
esoteric viewpoint, which is not acceptable. It is also unclear at times which
is in operation: a genuine scientific misunderstanding by the author, or a
distortion of mis-translation.
p27: On essential oils: One of their physical properties is called diathermy,
which means that the energy potential of an essential oil in gaseous form is
increased by light passing through it since the oil retains the calorific energy
of the light."
Comment: even if this is true or partly true, it has little relevance to
Aromatherapy...
p34 "Measurement with Vincents Bio-electrometer" from Louis Claude
Vincent's work "...Good quality essential oils have a pH of about 5
(maximum 5.8) and are therefore slightly acidic.
Comment: pH is a measure of the log to the base 10 of the reciprocal of the
hydrogen ion concentration. It is a meaningless figure in non-aqueous liquid
phases such as pure essential oils, as the hydrogen ion concentration is
immeasurable under these conditions. Under a highly specific procedure, a
co-solvent can be added to the oil to make it water miscible, and the amount of
acidic substances in the oil can be estimated by titrimetric procedures. Results
are usually expressed in volumetric amounts of a given strength of a specified
alkali (such as potassium hydroxide) required to neutralise a unit amount of
essential oil. Alternatively the acidic substances can be estimated by
alternative procedures, such as alkaline extraction, followed by subsequent
isolation and quantitation by gas-chromatography etc.
p49 Under Sesquiterpene, diterpenes, triterpenes. Plants rich in these
components....cloves...origanum(!).
Comment: OK clove oils have a ß-caryophyllene content, but then we have lower
down the page under special remarks: "Transcutaneous application is an
interesting method of application. 20% essential oil is mixed with plant oil and
massaged into the skin along the spine". - This is a dangerous
recommendation, as clove and origanum oils contain high amounts of phenols,
which can have a severely irritating or caustic action on the skin.
p50. "Aromatic alcohols"...we have under example of terpenes:
terpineol, citronellol, thuja oil, cedrol. Although this is correct in one
sense, it is also confusing and badly set out. A better heading would have been
"Alcohols". It would have been nicer to clearly distinguish aliphatic,
aromatic, monoterpinic (cyclic, acyclic etc), sesquiterpinic, diterpinic
alcohols.
p51. "Terpene esters and Terpeneless Esters." ...took me a while to
figure out what a terpeneless ester is...I guess aliphatic, aromatic esters etc.
would be a better grouping. Then we have the statement "They are
electro-negative, and create positively-charged currents". I am not quite
sure which reality this happens in. I don't think it happens in mine!
p51. "Aromatic and Terpene Aldehydes." List erroneously includes
citronellol and myrtenol which are alcohols.
p52 Aromatic ketones.
"An athylene compound binds oxygen to carbon. There are several types of
ketones: monotones and diketones, cyclic and acrylic ketones". Several
typos here, I think the author meant to say:
A double bond binds oxygen to carbon. There are several types of ketones: mono-
and di-ketones, cyclic and acylic ketones
p52 "Aromatic, alpiphatic acids containing terpenes". This is non-sensical,
should be "Aromatic and terpenic compounds containing a carboxylic
acid" grouping.
p53. "Sesquiterpene lactones." Interestingly there is no mention of
sensitization effects in the whole book. It should be noted in this section at
least.
There are many more mistakes, misprints and references to the science of times
gone by. A great pity that Balz didn't get his work checked over by a scientist,
because in other respects, this is an interesting book.
Copyright © 2000 by Tony Burfield. All Rights Reserved.