LEMON BALM
melissa officinalis L.
Labiatae
Mint family

HISTORY
The word Balm is an abbreviation of Balsam,
the chief of sweet-smelling oils.
It is so called from its honeyed sweetness.
It was highly esteemed by Paracelsus,
who believed it would completely revivify a man.
It was formerly esteemed of great use
in all complaints supposed to proceed
from a disordered state of the nervous system.

The London Dispensary (1696) says:
'An essence of Balm, given in Canary wine,
every morning will renew youth, strengthen the brain,
relieve languishing nature and prevent baldness.'

John Evelyn wrote: 'Balm is sovereign for the brain,
strengthening the memory and powerfully
chasing away melancholy.'
Balm steeped in wine we are told again,
'comforts the heart and driveth away melancholy and sadness.'

Formerly a spirit of Balm,
combined with lemon-peel, nutmeg and angelica root,
enjoyed a great reputation under the name
of Carmelite water, being deemed highly useful
against nervous headache and neuralgic affections.

Many virtues were formerly ascribed to this plant.
Gerard says:
'It is profitably planted where bees are kept.
The hives of bees being rubbed with the leaves of bawme,
causeth the bees to keep together, and causeth
others to come with them.'
And again quoting Pliny, 'When they are strayed away,
they do find their way home by it.'
Pliny says: 'It is of so great virtue that though it be but tied
to his sword that hath given the wound it stauncheth the blood.'
Gerard also tells us:
'The juice of Balm glueth together greene wounds,'
and gives the opinion of Pliny and Dioscorides that
'Balm, being leaves steeped in wine, and the wine drunk,
and the leaves applied externally, were considered
to be a certain cure for the bites
of venomous beasts and the stings of scorpions.

It is now recognized as a scientific fact that the balsamic oils
of aromatic plants make excellent surgical dressings:
they give off ozone and thus exercise anti-putrescent effects.

Being chemical hydrocarbons, they contain so little oxygen
that in wounds dressed with the fixed balsamic herbal oils,
the atomic germs of disease are starved out, and the resinous
parts of these balsamic oils, as they dry upon
the sore or wound, seal it up and effectually
exclude all noxious air.


ACTIONS
CONDITIONS
CULINARY
DESCRIPTION
ESSENTIAL OIL
HISTORY
LORE
MAGICAL PROPERTIES