Charcoal: A Healing Wonder from the Ashes

The story of charcoal cannot be nailed down to any civilisation, continent or century. A myriad tales, however, point to several firsts of this carbonaceous material in man’s voluminous history book. It probably began when the cold north wind swept across the deserts of Western Asia, and the season for using natural wood charcoal made an appearance.

The history of charcoal comes in the wake of the origins of fire – evidence of cooked food is found from 1.9 million years ago, although fire was probably not used in a controlled fashion until 400,000 years ago. Substantiation becomes widespread around 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, suggesting regular use from this time.

Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood, sugar, bone char, or other substances in the absence of oxygen. The resulting soft, brittle, lightweight, black, porous material resembles coal and is 50–95 percent carbon, with the remainder consisting of volatile chemicals and ash.

Red colobus monkeys in Africa have been observed eating charcoal for the purposes of self-medication. Their leafy diets contain high levels of cyanide, which may lead to indigestion. So they learned to consume charcoal, which absorbs the cyanide and relieves indigestion. This knowledge about supplementing their diet is transmitted from mother to infant.

Curing the Modern Man: Charcoal as Medicine

The medicinal properties of activated charcoal have been known for a very long time. Both Hippocrates 400 BCE and Pliny the Elder (50 CE) wrote about its use in treating a variety of ailments, including vertigo, anthrax and absorbing the odours from rotting wounds. In hospitals today, it is used to treat overdose and poisoning, as it can absorb certain toxins in the gut before they enter the bloodstream. Vets also prescribe it to dogs that have eaten substances that are toxic to them, like chocolate.

Activated charcoal is not the same substance as that found in the charcoal used in barbeques; the manufacture of activated charcoal makes it extremely absorbent, allowing it to bind to molecules, ions, or atoms.

Making activated charcoal involves heating carbon-rich materials, such as wood, coconut shells or sawdust, to very high temperatures. This activation process strips the charcoal of previously absorbed molecules and frees up bonding sites again. This process also reduces the size of the pores in the charcoal and makes more holes in each molecule, thereby increasing its overall surface area. As a result, one teaspoon of activated charcoal has more surface area than a football field.

Due to its powerful toxin-clearing properties, some advocates have proposed activated charcoal as a treatment for various conditions. These include kidney health, intestinal gas, diarrhoea, skin and dental care, and also to filter water.