For centuries, people from all corners of the earth have recognized the beneficial healing properties of the aloe plant when applied to the skin, but only in more recent years have the benefits of drinking the juice of this plant, become more well-known.

Similarly, until very recently, it was generally thought that all aloes were “aloe Vera”, whilst in fact there are some 360 different aloe species world-wide, of which the aloe Vera is one – the aloe Ferox, indigenous to South Africa, is another.

The considerable volume of promotional literature on aloe Vera has publicized that the extensive use of aloe in modern times dates from the observation made by the western world that natural leaves and juice of aloes were used with dramatic success by some Japanese survivors of the nuclear explosions in 1945. This led to the large-scale cultivation of aloes, (aloe Vera) in the USA and Mexico, to provide material for the manufacture of aloe ingredients for the skin-care market. Subsequent sales promotions set out, very successfully, to elevate aloe Vera to the status of an exclusive and almost mystical plant to which the United States, with some support from Mexico and Barbados, had access. The historic fact is that it was a different species – aloe Arborescens (also indigenous to South Africa) – which had been used to successfully at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and continues to be the subject of popular use and extensive research in Japan.

The earlier history of the cosmetic use of Aloe, going back three thousand years and more, has also been extensively covered as part of the promotion of aloe Vera. We know today that aloe Vera, as a distinct species, is indigenous only to Yemenite Arabia and was spread from there even before Biblical times. Later, explorers and traders continued the distribution, to both the east (including India and China) and westwards. Hence, nowadays, people generally tend to refer to ALL aloe plants or products as “aloe Vera”, no matter which species of aloe has been used – much like people often refer to a vacuum cleaner as a “Hoover” (which is a brand name) or to a photocopy, as a “Xerox”.

Despite the fact that the aloe was well-known in many other parts of the world for hundreds of years, it is interesting to note that isolated societies as far removed as the indigenous peoples of South Africa had independently discovered the uses of aloes. In addition to the many uses to which aloe Ferox was put by the KhoiSan (or Bushmen) in the very early days, other indigenous groups used other Aloe species for medicinal purposes:

• The Xhosa used the pulped leaves of aloe Saponaria to treat human ringworm;
• For internal worms, they used a decoction of aloe Tenuior root;
• The Zulus administer extract of aloe Marlothii by mouth, for roundworms;
• It was common practice to apply the cut surface of aloe Ferox leaves to fresh skin wounds as well as to infected ulcers and boils;
• The Bakone used leaves of aloe Fossteri, warmed in hot ash, on wounds and sores;
• The so-called Cape Coloured people used aloe Variegate in the same fashion for gumboils and infected teeth;
• The Pondo people used the juice of aloe Aristata mixed with water to wash their bodies for its refreshing, cleansing effect.

There are many more reports of the use of South Africanaloes by different ethnic groups. Interesting pictorial
evidence of this is the presence of aloe Ferox old rock paintings preserved in a cave. The San (Bushmen) were not caricaturists; they depicted those animals and other phenomena, natural or mystic, that were important in their daily lives.

Although aloe Ferox crystals were one of the first productsto be exported from the Cape in the 1600’s, it is onlywithin the last 15 years or so that a more formal aloe industryhas begun to emerge in South Africa.