Wounds & Antiseptics

When plants are wounded, the sticky resin comes out. I remember as a kid, we used to pinch plants to make dark spots, or dig our nails into them. I don't think they were aloe, but I remember some plants had these long shoots that would push out this clear, sticky, stringy fluid when we broke the ends off. We would paint with them lol. Kids can be so cruel.

With a lot of plants, the resin contains the essential oils. They act like antiseptics: they push out germs and coat the flesh to keep the germs from entering the wound.

This is exactly what our blood does when we get wounded. It forces out, and the outward flow helps keep germs from entering the wound. It also contains militant cells that continue to repel bad germs when it has coated the flesh. It contains plasma, which is what dries and forms the scab to close the wound off from the elements. Plasma helps knit the skin cells back together, too.

Essential oils do for us what they do for the plants. They offer additional protection by coating the wound along with the blood. They also have antiviral, antiseptic and other microbial properties, which help the blood to repel dangerous germs that would cause infection. Some oils are thicker, and can turn into what I call a liquid bandaid. They harden, much like a scab, so you don't have to worry about a sticky mess, and they have even more ability than your plasma to help knit skin cells together for healing. I've used myrrh this way on papercuts lots of times. The pain lessened, and the skin didn't snag on anything.

Essential oils also promote healing with their aromatic properties. You can't help smelling the scent of oils when you are applying them to yourself and others. The fragrances are always soothing and balancing, and our bodies calm so that the healing process can begin. Trauma disappears as we inhale the lovely scents.

Most medical antiseptics do not behave this way. Although, contrary to how it can sound in alternative medicine sometimes, they do actually do what their labels say they do. I had an interesting conversation with my daughter a while back about this. She had told her teacher at school that antibiotics don't work. She was telling me that her teacher had argued with her about that. I told her her teacher was correct. Antibiotics do exactly what the labels say they do. The label says they kill bacteria, and that's true. The problem is that killing microbials is only part of the process.

Medical antiseptics do clean wounds and kill germs. But they're often not geared towards healing at all, so after you've used them on the wound, you have to use other synthetic ointments and whatnot in order to start the healing process. Most of the time, the antiseptic has killed off even the beneficial germs that would help in the healing process, and you're left with less than what you started with to begin healing.