When did the use of Aloe Vera as a medicinal plant begin?

It is quite uncertain to define since when Aloe Vera has been known as a medicinal plant. One of its first pharmaceutical uses can be traced back to 2100 B.C., on a Sumerian clay tablet. But there are reports of pictorial images of the plant found on the walls of an Ancient Egyptian temple dating back to 4000 B.C. For so long, the aloe vera plant has been surrounded by myths and legends, which—in some primitive cultures—gave it an almost divine status, and it has been revered for its healing properties.

There is undeniable evidence of its use as a broad-spectrum healing agent in places such as southern Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East, and America. One of the earliest and most detailed reports can be found in the Egyptian 'Ebers Papyrus,' written around 1550 B.C., which documents a number of formulas for the use of Aloe in treatments for various internal and external disorders.

Civilizations

The ancient Egyptians revered Aloe and called it the 'Plant of Immortality.' This may be due to stories about its use in the embalming process (a procedure that—apparently—still puzzles experts today), its importance in the burial rituals of the pharaohs, and the two Egyptian queens, Nefertiti and Cleopatra, who were known for their beauty and were said to bathe in Aloe Vera juices.

@royalty_now_

The Israelites—after years of slavery in Egypt—may have adopted some funerary traditions from their captors, because legend says that King Solomon was a devotee of Aloe and cultivated it for its aromatic and medicinal properties. It is said that the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia used the plant to ward off evil spirits from their homes. Much later, the Knights Templar drank a mixture of wine, Aloe pulp, and marijuana, which they called the 'Elixir of Jerusalem', attributing their good health and longevity to it.

By around 600 B.C., Aloe Vera had entered Persia and India, probably through Arab traders, who then used it both internally and externally. They had discovered how to process the plant, which they often called the 'Lily of the Desert': barefoot, they separated the gel and sap from the rind, and emptied the obtained pulp into goat skin bags, which they dried in the sun; then, they crushed the contents into powder.

Alexander the Great and Aloe Vera

The Bedouin tribes and Tuareg warriors of the Sahara Desert refer to the plant as 'Lily of the Desert.' Around 500 B.C., the island of Socotra earned a reputation as a cultivator of Aloe Vera. A legend states that Alexander the Great conquered this island to secure a permanent supply of Aloe plants for treating his soldiers' wounds during his military campaigns.

The Hindus believed that Aloe Vera grew in the Gardens of Eden and called it the 'Silent Healer'. Ancient Chinese doctors considered it one of the plants with the most therapeutic properties and called it the "Harmonic Remedy." The Mayas and Aloe VeraFor centuries, the plant was used in the American continent by the Maya civilization of Yucatán. Women used it to hydrate their skin and took advantage of its bitter taste to wean their children off breastfeeding.

The Seminole Indians of Florida believed in its rejuvenating power and said that the fountain of youth—which Ponce de León vainly searched for—was located in a pond surrounded by Aloe Vera plants. However, the milestone in the general use of Aloe Vera is in the Greek Treatise on Botany by Dioscorides (41-68 A.D.), which contains the first detailed description of Aloe Vera as we know it today.

The Jesuits and Aloe

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the medicinal use of Aloe Vera spread in Northern Europe and worldwide. In the fifteenth century, Spanish Jesuit priests, who—as highly educated scholastics and physicians—had read the Greek and Roman medical texts describing its properties and powers, discovered Aloe Vera.

When accompanying explorers to new lands, they used the plant whenever they found it and planted it in places where it was scarce or absent. They also spread their knowledge of Aloe Vera to different parts of America where they established missions after the conquerors defeated the local natives. They are credited with the expansion of cultivation and use of the plant in what is now known as Latin America, Mexico, and Texas, while developing their missionary network.

For the next 200 years, little was said about Aloe Vera. In northern European countries, it was generally used as a purgative when a strong but effective remedy was needed. This almost fearsome reputation, different from that of a "healing product", lasted for years. Even today, some less informed people think that taking Aloe Vera is dangerous, which is a conclusion mainly based on ignorance of the quality and purity of products available today.

Its well-deserved reputation as a healing plant probably contributed until recently to its failure in temperate zones of the world. If Aloe Vera was to reappear, a technique had to be found to stabilize the gel, ensuring that people worldwide could use it in a pure and safe state.

Many processing methods were tried, but because all involved using the leaf rind, some required heat; thus, they unknowingly compromised the healing properties or destroyed most of the nutrients present in the gel.

Whatever technique was used, the substance called aloin in 1851 (the purgative agent found just beneath the hard green rind) remained. It was not until the 1970s that scientists found an effective way to separate aloin from the rind, allowing the preservation of the gel obtained from the leaf.