NATURE COLUMN: Bill Cawley
WE HAVE a clump of lavender in the garden. I have no idea how long it has been there, but it is a welcome addition to the greenery.
I once saw vast acreages of the plant in Norfolk where it is grown commercially some years ago. Our small collection is not in that league.
Lavender derives its name from the Latin lava meaning to wash.
The Romans realised that the plant also has antiseptic qualities as well as its relaxing virtues.
The seventeenth century herbalists Thomas Culpeper wrote that lavender was ‘especially good use for all griefes and paines of the head and brain.’
It is said that Charles VI of France who ruled in the 14th century insisted that his pillow always contain lavender so he could get a good night’s sleep.
Although as Charles was also known as Charles the Mad and thought he was made of glass the effect of the plant was limited in curing Charles’s ‘griefes.’
It was also widely used in Renaissance France. Washerwomen were known as ‘lavenders’ because they would wash clothes with the plant and then dry them on bushes.
The scent was meant to ward off infection and people appreciated the scent. There were no showers, so a little lavender probably went a long way in making people smell a little less ripe.
The tradition of laying clothes over lavender bushes, I was told, is still carried out in rural France.
During the 16th century, glove makers were licensed to use lavender to perfume their gloves. Interestingly, these glovers were some of the most successful in avoiding the plague which was running rampant at the time.
Lavender was also employed as a cure during the Great Plague in England in the 17th century.
Plague doctors wore the strange masks like birds beaks while treating people, and would stuff these with lavender in an attempt to keep themselves disease free. Whether this helped or not remains open to question and it is not advised in the present Covid -19 pandemic as is not injecting yourself with Domestos.
In the 19th century, gypsies sold bunches of lavender and violets on the streets of London to bring people good luck and protect against ill fortune.
Later it became famous for its skin healing when René-maurice Gattefossé, the 1930s French chemist, burned his hand in his laboratory.
He applied lavender oil to treat the burn and was so impressed by the quick healing process that he published a book, Aromathérapie: Les Huiles Essentielles, Hormones Végétales, and coined the word aromatherapy (the therapy of aromatic plants). Lavender was also used by doctors during WWII to treat burns.
At the same time, a French biochemist, Marguerite Maury, developed a unique method of applying these oils to the skin with massage — hence the practice of aromatherapy massage — now commonly used.