HISTORY:

Bees has been in existence for 125 million years and their evolutionary success
has allowed them to become perennial species that can exploit virtually all habitats
on the earth. This success is largely because of the chemistry and application of the
specific products that bees manufacture: honey, beeswax, venom, propolis and
royal jelly.1
Human use of honey is traced to some 8000 years ago as depicted by Stone Age
paintings 2. The ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Chinese, Greeks and Romans
employed honey for wounds and diseases of the gut 3
Honey is defined as the sweet liquid substance produced by the bees from the
nectar gathered from the flowers and stores by them for food.The color and flavor
are determined by the flowers used.It was the early mans source for sugar.About
80% of honey is levulose and dextrose, the remainder is mostly water.1
The usage of honey as a medicine is referred to in the most ancient written records,
it is being prescribed by the physicians of many ancient races of people for a wide
variety of ailments.4
It has continued its use in folk medicine ever since. Here are some of the
beneficial effects of honey which have been utilized by ancient races are
summarized.

1)Honey in ancient india

Honey has been used in Ayurveda medicine in India for at least 4000 years and is
considered to affect positively in all three primitive material imbalances of the
body. In the Ayurvedic system of medicine, within specific bee species, curative
honey is categorized under eight distinct types. Overall, more than 634 remedies
with honey as an ingredient have been propounded to tackle a wide range of health
problems and many of them are said to be of complex formulation.5
Honey in ayurveda:
Traditionally, according to the texts of Ayurveda, honey is a boon to those with
weak digestion. Also it has been emphasized that the use of honey is highly
beneficial in the treatment of irritating cough. Honey is regarded by Ayurvedic
experts, as valuable in keeping the teeth and gums healthy 6.
It has been used for centuries for the treatment of insomnia because it has hypnotic
action. Additionally, traditional Ayurvedic experts recommend honey for skin
disorders (such as wounds and burns), cardiac pain and palpitation, all imbalances
of the lungs and anemia. Honey has a long history of Ayurvedic use for various eye
ailments. Applied daily to the eyes, it improves the eye-sight. Moreover, honey is
regarded as useful in the prevention of cataract6.

In the earliest hindu vedic texts,honey and its evolution are described elaborately.It
is used as a metaphor to describe sun as honeycomb.The honeybees incubate in the
cells to form the honey,which is called the nectar of the sun11

2)Honey in ancient Egypt

It has also been used by humans since pre-Ancient Egyptian times to treat a variety
of ailments through topical application, but only recently have the antiseptic and
antibacterial properties of honey been chemically explained. Ancient Egyptian
physicians used honey in medicinal compounds 5,000 years ago.5
Its prescription for a standard wound salve discovered in the Smith papyrus (an
Egyptian text dating from between 2600 and 2200 B.C.) calls for a mixture of mrht
(grease), byt (honey) and ftt (lint/fibre) as transliterated from hieroglyphic
symbols7. Almost all Egyptian medicines contained honey together with wine and
milk. The ancient Egyptians offered honey to their deities as a sacrifice8. They also
used honey for embalming the dead. Honey was utilized for its antibacterial
properties that helped heal infected wounds. Moreover, honey was used as a topical
ointment9.
3)Honey in ancient greece
The ancient Greeks believed that honey could promote virility and longevity.5
Hippocrates, the great Greek scientist, prescribed a simple diet, favouring honey
given as oxymel (vinegar and honey) for pain, hydromel (water and honey) for
thirst, and a mixture of honey, water and various medicinal substances for acute
fevers7. Also he utilized honey for baldness, contraception, wound healing, laxative
action, cough and sore throat, eye diseases, topical antisepsis, prevention and
treatment of scars 2.

4)Honey in islamic medicine

In ancient Islamic literature, honey bees have been extolled for their "intelligence,
industry and creativity." The Quran mentions it as medicine to cure human illness.
It says "And thy Lord taught the Bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in
(men's) habitations; Then to eat of all the produce (of the earth), and find with skill
the spacious paths of its Lord: there issues from within their bodies a drink of
varying colors, wherein is healing for men: verily in this is a Sign for those who
give thought" [Al-Quran 16:68-69].5

In addition to important role of natural honey in the traditional medicine, during

the past few decades, it was subjected to laboratory and clinical investigations.
Antibacterial activity of honey is one of the most important findings that was first
recognized in 1892; by van Ketel 10

History of use of honey for general health

Honey and it effects on the general health have been numerous ,the earliest
documentation came from Cavanagh et al. (1970) who described 12 cases of
wound breakdown after radical vulvectomy being dressed with honey. The
wounds, of a type notoriously difficult to keep free from infection, were found to
become sterile in 3 6 days, have a clean healthy granulating (healing) appearance,
required the minimum of surgical removal of dead tissue, and to not need skin
grafting as would normally be required. Honey was found to be non-irritant and
much more effective than topical antibiotics, the time in hospital being reduced
from the usual 78 to 34 weeks.12

Efem in 1988 reported clinical observations on the healing with honey of 59 cases
of wounds and skin ulcers that had not been healing for 124 months with
conventional treatment. The wounds were found to become sterile and odourless in
1 week, pus and gangrenous tissue separating by themselves painlessly. Swelling
and exudation of lymph subsided rapidly and there was rapid development of new
tissue to repair the wounds. The honey caused no adverse reactions.13

Also a study done by Efem in 1993 reported a trial where 20 cases of Fournier's
gangrene (a form of necrotising fasciitis) were treated by daily application of
honey with no surgery, compared with 21 similar cases treated by surgical removal
of infected tissue and systemic antibiotics. Similar outcomes were achieved with

both treatments but with a faster response to treatment with honey, the wounds
becoming sterile within 1 week with honey, and with the group treated with honey
not requiring plastic surgery.1
India has also shown a long standing history of using honey as a medicament and
one of the most persistent use has been the use of it for wound healing agent.
In a study conducted by Subrahmanyam (1991) he reported a randomised
controlled trial in which honey was compared with silver sulfadiazine for efficacy
as a dressing for burns. With silver sulfadiazine, the most widely used agent to
prevent or clear infection in burns, 7% of the patients had infection in the burns
controlled within 7 days, whereas with honey 91% of the wounds were sterile
within 7 days. Honey was observed to remove dead tissue and offensive smell from
the burns. Healthy granulation tissue was observed to appear nearly twice as fast
with honey, and new skin cover developed faster also. There was better relief of
pain, less exudation of lymph, and less irritation with honey. Honey also gave a
lower incidence of raised scars and contractures.15
A detailed review of the published literature on the use of honey in wound healing
has been published by Molan.16 This literature provides a convincing body of
evidence from clinical observation, clinical trials and experiments on animals for
the effectiveness of honey as a wound dressing.
Haffejee and Moosa (1985) reported a clinical trial in which honey was used in
place of glucose in a rehydration fluid (solution of electrolytes) given to infants
and children admitted into hospital with gastroenteritis. The treatment with honey
gave a statistically significant reduction in the duration of diarrhoea caused by
bacterial infection (58 hours cf 93 hours).17

History of honey and oral health:

Wound healing was probably the first use of honey for human health. In the oldest
human scriptures from Sumer, dating back about 2000 BC a prescription for
treating wounds states: Grind to a powder river dust and . (words missing) then
knead it in water and honey and let plain oil and hot cedar oil be spread over it.18
Potential of honey to be used as an adjunct to therapies in oral care is tremendous
especially following extraction to aid wound healing and to prevent the
development of dry socket, periodontal surgery and to have a generalized
antibacterial action.
It has been proposed that antioxidants be used to protect the periodontal tissues
from damaging free radicals formed in the inflammatory response.
Honey contains a substantial levels of antioxidants,and has an antinflammatory
action that has been clearly demonstrated to be direct and not secondary to the
clearance of infection.19 Many in-vitro comparison and few clinical trials have been
conducted to use honey as a medicament but these studies are only paltry in
number.
So with this historical knowledge and with the sudden explosion of the use of
honey in the modern medicine we can incorporate it into our day to day lives and
modern medicine.

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