The History of the Tea Tree and Its Uses

Tea tree oil goes by a lot of names like teabaum, teetree and melaleuca oil there are various others depending on the country you are in. The tea tree is a small bush that grows in wet or swampy ground it is also a fast grower thus production of this oil is able to keep up with demand, at one stage even exceeding demand.

Captain James Cook captain of the H.M.S Endeavour set down at Botany bay in 1770 from where he traveled throughout the coastal regions of New South Wales, where he found masses of trees laden with sticky thick leaves. He found that boiling these leaves rendered a spicy tea, these trees were growing around lagoons and as the leaves of the trees fell into these lagoons it created medicinal water, an till this day these waters are known as 'magical healing waters'.

As in any 'new' country explorers put on the map there were natives and they were called Aborigines, these natives to Australia told Captain Cook about the medicinal uses of these trees, they told him that is was common practice for them to use these leaves crushed, and held in place by a mudpack to heal wounds.

Hundreds of Australian soldiers were hospitalized in World War II, but not for the obvious war related injuries, they all had extreme cases of foot fungus that the doctors could not get under control, a medic that happened to be a Aborigine remembered the great healing powers of the tea tree, he managed to get hold of some pure essential oils and got all the doctors to coat the feet of all the infected soldiers, a few days later there were no signs of this foot fungus on any of the soldiers. In the same war it was found so effective that all the soldiers were issued tea tree oil in their first aid kits, it acted as a triple antibiotic called so because it is a powerful anti fungal, anti bacterial and antibiotic oil.

In the 1940's with the invention of penicillin the use of tea tree oil almost seized but started gaining popularity again in the 1970, due to the fact that using penicillin too many times it just doesn't work the same if it works at all.

Studies has shown that tea tree oil shows great success in treating acne, athletes foot, corns, skin and vaginal infection as well as burns and cuts.

Leishmaniasis is a condition caused by sand flea bites, this is the problem facing soldiers in Iraq luckily it is treated with great success with tea tree oil, the oil even stops the fleas from biting the soldiers.

Please note that tea tree oil must under no condition be used by pregnant or breastfeeding woman. Tea tree oil is for external use only, and should not be ingested.