Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!aries!changcs
From: changcs@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Carole S. Chang)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Aloe, Aloe...
Message-ID: <1990Dec6.233534.453@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 6 Dec 90 23:35:34 GMT
References: <4198@kitty.UUCP> <59594@microsoft.UUCP> <00940C00.58B57F40@AIMB.ucsc.edu>
Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Organization: School of Chemical Sciences, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 23

Hi there!  I took a class last year called "Organic Analysis,"  but since the
prof was a heavily natural-products-type dude, there was a lot of emphasis on
learning to isolate and spectroscopically study natural products.  Each of us
had term-long projects which involved isolating some compound from some plant
or animal, and one of the groups had to isolate the active ingredient in aloe
(which is pronounced "a'-low", and not "a-loy'" as most of my classmates used
to do).

The prof was rather convinced that the compound, which is called aloin, if
anyone wants to go look it up, can help burns.  Its intestinal effects stem 
from its ability to make the membranes of the intestines to bring more water
up from inside the body.  I think it will also help you if you have a 
congested throat, but I'm not sure.  Of course, to make it work, you have to
eat the sap of the plant.

I suppose I should say that I am from, and the class was taken in, Hawaii, 
where the plant is rather common.  There was an aloe plant in the backyard of
my home, and the way we used it to treat burns was to rub the sap on the
burn.  I don't know if it really worked or what.

						-carole

No sig yet.  Someday, I suppose.