The aborigines of Australia didn’t need a name for the oil that their ancestors used over 30,000 years ago. They knew it could heal wounds, stop infections, treat burns, moisturize dry skin, and give the body a little extra energy on a hunt. When Captain Cooke and his crew arrived in 1770 they gave the leaves and the oil a name, Tea tree, and it has been called that ever since then. Cooke and his men made tea out of the leaves and they later mix it with spruce leaves and made a beer that kept the men happy as well as a little tipsy.

The medicinal properties of tea tree oil actually remained a secret until the 1920s. That’s when Dr. Arthur Penfold researched the antiseptic qualities of the oil. In 1929 Penfold along with another F.R. Morrison published “Australian Tea Trees of Economic Value,” and that work stimulated a large number of research projects that focused on the medicinal properties of tea tree oil. The work was important enough for the Australian government to issue it as an essential oil in armed forces first aid kits during World War II.

After the war the essential oil lost some of its appeal thanks to pharmaceutical antibiotics, but in the 1960s, the oil regained its popularity not just in Australia, but all over the world. The most promising new function of the oil is to help treat the MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) super bug that attacks people who have wounds. A Thursday Plantation in vitro study at East London University compared Vancomycin with tea tree oil, and it was considered a powerful alternative. Read the rest of this entry »