Soap & Medicine Herb of Ancients
- Sylvia Rose
- Dec 30, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 2
An innocuous shrub of desert regions, green ushtun (Seidlitzia rosmarinus) is used by ancients for soap and medicine. In Mesopotamia it's used to treat scorpion stings. In medieval times it's called launderer's potash.
Among saltworts, this green perennial enjoys saline soils, salt flats with hard ground where other plants can't grow. It's also fond of riverine gulches and drainage runnels with an accumulated quantity of sodium and chloride.
It likes slippery, silt-rich soils which become hard baked in dry seasons and is often found on hummocks. The silt crumbles to dust when dry and is a vital source of nutrients for the land during seasonal floods.
Leaves are soapy to the touch. The Arabic Bedouins are among those who use Seiditzia rosmarinus as a soap substitute. It's traditionally used to make nabulsi soap.
S. rosmarinus is native to the lower Jordan Valley along the Dead Sea, Israel, the Syrian desert, Central Iraq (near Najaf) and in coastal regions of Saudi Arabia. It's found in the islands of Bahrain, as well as Qatar and Iran.
Despite similarity in name, S. rosmarinus has only a distant relationship to the Mediterranean herb rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus). They share the clade of Eudicots, or plants forming two seed leaves on germination.
Ushtun is a well-known helpful herb. Even in ancient times potassium is extracted from the plant for medical use, giving rise to the word potash.
In the 10th century, the Arabian physician al-Tamimi describes production of laundry soap. Plants are gathered while fresh and green into bundles. Workers toss the bundles into furnaces of plaster and stone.
From the plants an extracted solution drips from the furnaces, down stone spouts to a threshing floor. Collected as liquid, it hardens into a black stone. This is broken into smaller parts and used as laundry detergent.
According to al-Tamimi, a chemical element made by burning Seidlitzia rosmarinus green leaves is called al-qalī (alkali). This refers to ashes of saltwort plants, used in soap and glass-making. They create a strong base for extraction of the alkaline metal potassium.
The process includes placing ashes into a pot, hence English potash, and adding water. The creator steams off the water, leaving an evaporated or crystallized solution. This type of approach is popular in alchemy.
The name potassium doesn't appear until 1807 AD. It's applied by Humphrey Davy, a scientist using the evaporation process.
Ancient Treatment for Bleeding Gums, Tooth Pain or Bad Breath
In the ancient world, one way to treat or prevent oral problems uses the above prepared powder. It's mixed with coarsely ground yellow-orpiment, a sulfide crystal, and oil of unripe olives.
Then, it must be heated over a fire in a ceramic skillet and turned constantly with an iron spoon until it congeals. When touched by fire it turns a reddish hue.
When the substance congeals it's allowed to burn completely in the ceramic skillet. While still hot it's pounded with mortar and pestle, making a powder, and sifted. Created in quantity it's stored for later use.
Rubbed on gums it's left for an hour, during which the patient suffers a severe burning sensation. It's then rinsed away with water and a gargle of Persian rose oil. There's also a Mesopotamian tooth worm extraction rite.
Seidlitzia rosmarinus is used as an electuary, a sweetened or palatable substance in compounds or theriacs for use in treating scorpion stings and snake bites.
Introduced by the Greeks in the first century AD, a theriac is especially formulated as an antidote to venom. It may be a potion, balm, powder or enema.
It's sometimes sold as a 'cure-all'. The medicine is reputed to have healing effects on the sting of a scorpion or bite of a snake. True theriac can take months or years to make, and is subsequently costly.
Ancient Hebrew literature refers to the alkaline plants borith and ahal. Borith is a plant of fullers, also called saponaria, a type of soapwort and close relative of green ushtun plant.
Hand and laundry soap are made from derivatives of the herbs. They include native flora like Seidlitzia, Salsola, Anabasis, Suaeda, Hammada, Mesembryanthemum or Salicornia, all considered alkaline plants.
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