considered a classic on the subject.  Marguerite Maury studied his work and began using essential oils and aromatherapy more in line with how we use them today. She searched for specific oils to treat different ailments.

She studied the whole person, including the psychological aspects, and was among the first of the modern practitioners to use oils in massage treatment. Her name appears in numerous articles and she is often credited as being the “mother” of modern aromatherapy.

In 1975 Dr. Paolo Rovesti, while on an archeological dig in Pakistan, discovered a terra-cotta piece of equipment that looked like an early still. It was believed to be from 3000 BC. Another still was found in Afghanistan and it had been built about 1,000 years later. Vessels containing coils were depicted in Mesopotamian tablets dated a few hundred years later still. No one knows for certain that these were early distillation tools, but they certainly appear to be tablets containing recipes for healing ointments, as well as early “purchase orders” for myrrh, cedar, and cypress, from trade nations.

Apparently it was the ancient Egyptians who made the first distillation machine. They used it to draw the oil from cedarwood. Persians and Indians made them as well, but the details of how they did it aren’t clear. It wasn’t until the 11^th century when a Persian named Avicenna invented a coiled pipe to cool the oils once they were heated by steam. Previously chemists were using a straight pipe method that wasn’t as effective. With Avicenna’s new process, those interested could focus more intently than ever before on the extraction of essential oils. Distillers were most likely invented in Arabia sometime around the 7^th century.