Disinfectant and healing properties of mud

The healing properties of mud are known even to animals, They use it to apply it to their wounds.

Wounded animals know how to look for the lakes of water or muds impregnated with mineral salts guided by the smell.

That smell that we perceive after raining and that smells so good to us is the of the actinomycetes, the microbes of the earthlarge producers of antibiotics.

Over there where there are curative watersapparently, animals make use of them.

The use of clay throughout history

Not only animals use mud to heal. Man has also known about the properties of mud for centuries: in the Karum papyrus it is written that Nile mud were used for gynecological problems.

hippocratesGalen and Dioscorides they treated traumatisms and wounds with clayand according to the Gospel Jesus restored sight to a blind man by applying earth with saliva to his eyes.

The mud has continued to be used throughout the history of medicine, although since the last century it has been reduced to spas or popular uses with little medical control.

Various are known therapeutic muds called peloidsbut it is the clay with advantage that is the most popular.

Where peloids are most used in Spain is in the Manga del Mar Menor. The collection of medical data from the cures that take place there would hold many surprises.

The disinfecting power of mud

A whole second generation of antibiotics has been obtained from the muds.

The protagonists of this action are some bacteria, which to protect themselves from water currents secrete a mucus similar to the one that forms in the cloths.

In the clay that mucus improves its viscosity, elasticity and manageability, but also their therapeutic possibilities.

The chinese potters they knew and they said that a clay, to have properties, had to be mature in water: it is necessary to give time for them to proliferate bacteria and segregate biofilms.

Clay bacteria feed on iron, silica, sulfur, and other inorganic materials., which they convert to organic when processing the gelatin. Thus, the clay in contact with water comes to life and begins a maturation process that prepares it for use in hours or days.

The fact that these bacteria live in the clay prevents others that could be harmful from developing.

Intuitively, for thousands of years it has been seen that, With clay, not only are wounds not infected, but its microbes help healingwhile other soils, such as humus, could be harmful.

Today, the knowledge of these microbes proves us right.

How to take a therapeutic mud bath?

Taking a mud bath seems difficult, but it is not.

You can try the Egyptian method: the body is smeared with a handful of kneaded clay from a few days ago, it is allowed to dry and is removed with water.

Much of the already dried mud it is better to remove it by hand to prevent it from clogging the shower drain.