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THE THREE wise men bearing frankincense and myrrh to the newborn Jesus
bestowed remarkably versatile gifts. These resins, collected from trees
for more than 5000 years, make sweet-smelling perfume and incense. But they
were also reputed to ward off all manner of ills, and traditional healers
still sell mixtures of the resins in places as far afield as London and
Kingston, Jamaica. The medical establishment is now discovering the value
of many of these herbal remedies. One myrrh resin, for instance, seems to
reduce levels of cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood, and may even
help people to lose weight.

Frankincense and myrrh have been prized by all civilisations, and once
ranked along with gold, ivory, spices and textiles as valuable commodities
for trade. Compared with these treasures, the resins are scarce: small groups
of nomads collect them from uncultivated trees growing only in parts of
northeast Africa and Arabia.

Perhaps because of this scarcity, no one is sure whether the sweet-smelling
incenses described in ancient literature are the same as those known today.
But we do know that makers of incense have always used, among other substances,
two solid resins from trees growing only in these regions. The resins resemble
the frankincense and myrrh which the surgeon and botanist H. J. Carter described
in 1909.

Frankincense is a French word meaning ‘pure incense’. By the first century
AD, people were calling the milky white resin olibanum, from the Arabic
‘liban’, for milk. It comes from a single species of low, spiky tree, Boswellia
carteri, found in the arid highlands of Somalia and the Arabian peninsula.
People collect the resin by scraping the bark and collecting the exudate
several months later. A resin known as West African frankincense or ‘bumbo’
comes from another tree, Daniella thurifera, and is not related to true
frankincense.

Myrrh is a reddish resin collected from the short, thorny tree Commiphora
myrrh. This species is related to the source of frankincense: both it and
B. carteri belong to the family Burseraceae. The tree produces its oily,
bitter-tasting resin at the bases of its branches, and has a wider distribution
than its sweet-tasting relative: it also grows across Ethiopia and Kenya.
Many other species of Commiphora also produce resins, such as African myrrh
from C. habessinica, and the guggulu resin from C. mukul. Biochemically,
these fragrant resins are all remarkably similar.

The trees probably produce the resins as a response to trauma; they
may act as a temporary dressing for damaged bark. Local nomadic groups collect
resin in summer, during migrations between grazing for their goats and camels.
A single tree may yield several kilograms each year; a governmental agency
in Somalia offers some $3 a kilogram for frankincense and $5 for myrrh.
India and the Far East have always been the biggest exporters of the resins,
and Europeans once referred to frankincense as ‘Indian incense’.

The Egyptians probably came by both land and sea to collect these resins
before 2000 BC. Early Egyptian myths describe them as the ‘tears of Horus’,
the god of the Sun and Moon. Later texts from Greek, Roman and Indian authors
describe the trade in these prized resins, which reached as far as Rome,
China and North Africa. The great ‘incense trade’ swelled in 1100 BC when
domestication of the camel made transporting them across the desert lands
of Arabia much easier. Today the trade in these resins is probably smaller
than in ancient times: Herodotus describes the burning of 2189 jars and
304 093 bushels of incense at one ceremony in the 5th century BC, and records
the taxation by the Romans of 2000 talents from one small province in the
Arabian peninsula in the same century.

But the resins have always been used as medicine too. In the Papyrus
Ebers of about 1500 BC, perhaps the oldest list of prescriptions, priests
describe the value of both resins for mummification and for treating wounds
and skin sores. At first, people seemed to make no distinction between the
various resins, but later texts appearing in Sanskrit, Chinese, Greek and
Latin described clearly different applications.

Between AD 25 and 35, Celsus, the Roman author who compiled the most
extensive medical encyclopedia of his age, recommended frankincense for
treating wounds and bleeding, and as a possible antidote to poisoning by
hemlock. He advised mixing it with leek juice to stop internal bleeding
and superficial bruising.

In the 17th century, Nicolas Culpeper, an apothecary practising in Spitalfields,
London, used frankincense to treat stomach ulcers and as an ointment for
bruises. During this period, distillates of the resin, the ‘oils of olibanum’,
were popular among the barber surgeons, apothecaries and alchemists, probably
for their appealing scent. Other cultures used the resin and its oils in
a similar way: in India, people applied it to wounds and used it to treat
rheumatism. Chinese healers incorporated it into remedies for bruises and
infected sores, including those caused by leprosy. In Kenya, people dressed
wounds with the resin, and mixed it with sesame oil as a treatment for worms.
Today, at least one commercial manufacturer of Turkish delight adds frankincense,
while some manufacturers of toiletries add it to hair lacquer as a perfuming
and hardening agent.

Myrrh has always been a more versatile medicine than frankincense. Early
Sumerian inscriptions describe treatments for bad teeth and worms, while
the Greeks prescribed it or its oils for infections of the mouth, teeth
and eyes, as well as for coughs. Another ‘infection’ successfully treated
with myrrh was the fermentation of wine into vinegar. ‘Aromatic’ wines,
containing a small amount of myrrh, had a longer shelf life. Traditionally,
Hebrews mixed myrrh with wine as an anaesthetic for a condemned man – Jesus
was offered the mixture at the Crucifixion. Both Greeks and Romans thought
that myrrh could cure poisoning by snake bites, a belief still held in East
Africa today.

The ancient Ayurvedic texts of India contain extensive descriptions
of the medicinal values of Indian myrrh, known locally as guggulu. As well
as prescribing it for easing coughs and chest complaints, the authors advised
obese people to eat myrrh to prolong life and help them to lose weight.
Chinese authors recommended myrrh for a range of mouth and skin infections
and mixed it with human or asses’ milk to treat thrush in infants. Like
the Ayurvedic healers, they also considered it to be valuable in prolonginglife
and preventing chest pain.

Over the centuries, myrrh has been widely prescribed as protection against
plagues: the Greeks suggested that myrrh held in the mouth or chewed could
stop bad breath, but bythe 10th century, both Arabic and European texts
were recommending this habit to anyone travelling through plague-infected
areas. Citizens of London during the Great Plague of 1665 noted, however,
that this remedy did not always have the desired effect.

The Celtic ‘leechdoms’, their tradition based on Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon
oral history, recommended myrrh as one of the more unusual remedies for
wounds and coughs, and for a variety of diseases in animals. The prescriptions
are clearly Mediterranean in origin, and may have been sent by Bishop Elias
III of Jerusalem to King Alfred in exchange for contributions to the Church.
So myrrh may have been used in England as a medicine before it became popular
as incense or as a cure for demons in the Church. Palaeopathologists think
that leprosy was remarkably common among Anglo-Saxons, so remedies for its
effects on the skin would have been widely sought after. The earliest physical
record of myrrh in Britain is a sample of its pollen, which was discovered
in a small pestle in the ruins of an 11th-century hospital in Scotland.

In medieval times people were still using myrrh as an ingredient in
many mixtures meant to promote absorption, prevent nausea and diarrhoea,
treat thrush or act as a tonic. The English navy used myrrh on a large scale,
as recommended by the Royal College of Physicians, for ‘treating’ scurvy.
It was a component of the Elixir of Vitriol used on all ships until 1795,
when the navy replaced it at last with a ration of lemon juice. It was an
essential ingredient in Griffith’s mixture, the first iron compound concocted
in the 18th century to treat patients after haemorrhage. Combining myrrh
with potassium iodide made Utus paste, a mixture recommended to induce abortion.
Victorians commonly used a tincture of myrrh and borax as an early toothpaste.
Today, myrrh remains in the French and British pharmacopoeias, and the pharmaceuticals
industry uses it widely in throat pastilles and cough mixtures. Wearers
of perfume can detect myrrh’s distinctive scent in Guy Laroche’s ‘Fidgi’.

Religious applications for the resins have several origins. Although
Chinese, Hindu, Bantu and Bactrian cultures all used incense for religious
purposes, the first documented use is Egyptian – the Egyptians used both
frankincense and myrrh in worship, at funerals and before their king. They
used frankincense in particular to purify cities, such as Memphis after
its sacking in the 8th century BC. An Assyrian tablet dating from the same
period describes personal purification by standing over burning incense,
and the Babylonians who preceded them used resin in a similar way. The Hebrews
described incense in the Old Testament, although they only began to use
it in their temples in the 3rd century BC. The early Christians initially
regarded incense as unnecessary, but by the 4th century they were using
it at Antioch, and it was widespread in churches throughout the western
world by the 10th century.

Under the influence of other traditions, Christian churches adopted
various uses for incense, most notably for drivingout demons. In the 12th
century, both resins wereceremonially burned in the tomb of St Paul, then
made intoa drink to heal the sick. In the 13th century Thomas Aquinas,the
Black Friar, laid down rules for the use of incense:’There are two objects
for its employment. First, out ofreverence for this sacrament, in order
that any disagreeablesmell (arising from the number of persons gathered
together). . . could (not) cause annoyance . . . Secondly, to symbolise
the effect of grace, of which Christ was full . . .’

Nowadays, churches use incense made according to well-tried recipes:
in England local abbeys supply most of it. Although frankincense and myrrh
are the main elements, the final scent often comes from mixing many ingredients.
Every year the Queen or a member of the court presents the Chapel of St
James’s Palace with pure frankincense and myrrh to commemorate the first
Epiphany. The Parsees of northern India, who are cultural descendants of
the three Magi, still use the resins in religious ceremonies: myrrh symbolises
self-denial, frankincense represents spirituality, and gold the wealth of
humankind.

As with many other herbal remedies, both frankincense and myrrh have
found a number of curious applications. Egyptian women used ashes of frankincense
to make their ‘kohl’ or eye-shadow. Turkish healers recommend myrrh as an
aphrodisiac, and both resins as protection against sorcery. Arabic doctors
mixed myrrh with vinegar as a cure for baldness, and English alchemists
recommended frankincense to give longer life. Even today, some foundries
continue the medieval tradition of blessing a new bell by burning both myrrh
and frankincense inside it.

Neither historical nor contemporary accounts suggest that frankincense
or myrrh produce directly toxic or hallucinatory effects. But social custom
has been less flexible: the book of Chronicles in the Old Testament documents
that King Uzziah lost his throne after 52 years for offering burning frankincense
in the temple in an inappropriate fashion.

These myriad applications of the resins usually have some foundation
in common sense or science. People often used them simply because good smells
drown out bad ones. They probably extended this idea to the driving out
of demons or infectious plagues. Anthropologists have found similar ‘aromatherapy’
based on resins, incenses and sweet-smelling substances in other cultures.

The resins must also have some medicinal value, judging by the experience
of traditional healers. Particularly intriguing is the fact that healers
from many different cultures valued myrrh as a tonic and a cough mixture,
and frankincense as a treatment for bleeding. Recent investigations of the
resins support these traditional views. Both have antiseptic, antifungal
and anti-inflammatory properties, and so make valuable dressings. And their
oils do cause the bronchii of the lungs to dilate, so they may relieve some
of the discomfort of lung infections and perhaps mild asthma. More striking
still, some researchers have found that eating resin or oil from C. mukul
or guggulu lowers levels of cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood.
A derivative of guggulu resin has been marketed since 1987 in India for
this purpose. The preparation is also mildly stimulating for the thyroid
and is being put on trial in India as a slimming agent. Chinese workers
have found that myrrh from C. myrrh can reduce the development of atherosclerosis,
or hardening of the arteries, in animals. So there is modern pharmacological
support for the suggestion made by Indian and Chinese sources more than
2000 years ago, that myrrh might help to prolong life.

Biochemists have found that the resins are made up of a large number
of compounds, but their individual medicinal effects are hard to pin down.
Myrrh contains a number of flavonoids, derivatives of phenylbenzopyrone,
which medical researchers are interested in because they help to reduce
inflammation and enhance the immune response. The tears of Horus still find
a place in today’s therapeutic armoury, and might become available in the
local pharmacy once more.

Dr Colin Michie researches in the ICRF Tumour Immunology Group at University
College School of Medicine, London.