Gold, frankincense and myrrh

Everyone who has heard the Nativity story will know that the newborn baby Jesus was given gold, frankincense and myrrh by the fabled Three Wise Men. But what do these substances look like, and do they have real medicinal properties?

You’ll recognise gold. Shiny and lustrous, it’s been used in jewellery and decorative arts for millennia throughout the world. The Alexandrian Egyptians believed that gold was the “fountain of youth”, for surely something that glowed so beautifully was innate with health. In medieval times gold was used as a healing remedy and, although the properties assigned to it then were more “magical” than medical, gold is used in many forms of modern medicine.


Gold nanoparticles are used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. When coated with a cancer antibody they are effective at binding to tumour cells. When bound to the gold, the tumour cells scatter light, making it very easy to identify the non-cancerous cells from the cancerous ones. The particles shown in this transmission electron micrograph are just 10-90 nanometres across.

Injections of gold salts are used to treat arthritis, and gold alloys are used in dentistry. Gold is used in medical imaging too, to coat a sample before it goes into a scanning electron microscope, a procedure that has been used to created many of Wellcome Images’ scanning electron micrographs.

Frankincense and myrrh have also been used in medicine throughout history, and are now being investigated by scientists to see if they are effective at treating disease.

Myrrh is the resin produced by Commiphora trees when the bark is attacked and the resulting wound reaches the sapwood. It has been valued since ancient times for its perfume and wound healing qualities, due to its antiseptic and anaesthetic properties. Myrrh is named for its bitter taste, so any oral remedies using the resin would have tasted quite unpleasant. The Ancient Egyptians used myrrh as the principal ingredient when embalming mummies. In Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, it is used for rheumatic and circulatory conditions.

Myrrh is used by many diabetics in Arabic countries to lower blood sugar, although no human studies have proved how effective this treatment is. Bilharzia, a tropical parasitic worm infection, has been treated with a marketed version of myrrh since 2001, although a review of this showed the efficacy of the cure to be low.^[1]

Frankincense comes from Boswellia trees. It is a resin like myrrh, and is called ruxiang in Chinese medicine. The name, meaning “nipple-shaped flower”, was first mentioned in Chinese medicine texts around 500 AD. This woodcut from the 19th century Yanhou miji, or Collected Secrets of Laryngology, illustrates an abcess of the throat that is treated with a traditional Chinese medicine six-flower concoction containing ruxiang.

Frankincense looks more promising as a modern medicine than myrrh. A systematic review of the use of frankincense to treat conditions including asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease concluded that the results of clinical trials were “encouraging” (though not “compelling”)^[2]. Compounds extracted from frankincense have shown anti-inflammatory properties in clinical trials^[3] as well as anti-depressive effects in mice^[4], so the modern therapeutic potential of frankincense might be fully realised in future years.

[1] Barakat R et al. Efficacy of myrrh in the treatment of human Schistosomiasis mansoni. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2005 Aug;73(2):365-7. Online here.

[2] E Ernst. Frankincense: systematic review. BMJ 2008;337:a2813. Online here.

[3] Moussaieff A, Mechoulam R. Boswellia resin: from religious ceremonies to medical uses; a review of in-vitro, in-vivo and clinical trials. J Pharm Pharmacol. 2009 Oct;61(10):1281-93. Online here.

[4] Moussaieff A. et al. Incensole acetate, an incense component, elicits psychoactivity by activating TRPV3 channels in the brain. FASEB J. 2008 Aug;22(8):3024-34. Epub 2008 May 20. PubMed link

Gold Country: Some Random Things to Share

Our part of the world is best known for being the place that gold was discovered in California back in 1848. We live very close to the South Fork of the American River and in fact, we spend much of our outdoor time in or around the water of this river. My parents live even closer to the actual gold discovery spot and have remains of an old town where the Chinese workers came to work in the mines and along the river.

The river was used for hydraulic mining which destroyed much of the habitat and you can still see remains of ditches dug for diverting water and piles of river rock where the soil was washed away looking for gold. The scars remain even today.

So much history left behind for us to explore and experience today.


This is an abandoned mine that we discovered on our regular hiking trail. This was taken a month or so ago and we were just there yesterday and it looks very different. The water level has dropped inside the mine and you can step inside a little to check it out. The water is not raining down inside as heavily either. The plants around the opening are getting green and somewhat covering up the entrance.


We took a hike to a different part of the river two weeks ago and it had lots of rocks that looked like this with the quartz encased in the other rocks.


This short video gives you an idea of what the rock and the river is like where we are. In the beginning of the video you will hear my husband's narrative....please know he was trying to be silly. Don't miss me almost falling into the river at one point... the rocks are hard to walk on especially when you are taking a video.


We had packed along our gold pans and the boys tried their hand at finding some gold. No luck this day.


The water was really cold and they decided there is a definite skill to panning. We wondered about the gold miners back in the 1800's and how they must have remained motivated by either their success or the success of others around them. It is back breaking work.


On another hike, we saw this guy alongside the river on the North Fork getting ready to start using his sluice box for gold mining. Here is an easy explanation of how a sluice box works. My husband has used one before and he says it just is an easier way to sift through the gravel looking for flakes of gold. He took a geology class where they actually did gold dredging in this river and he was surprised that there still is quite a bit of gold if you take the time to look for it.


I bet you don't see this very often. We have one place that we like to hike to along the river because it has a perfect spot for skipping rocks when the water is low. We went there the other day and for the first time we saw these signs posted everywhere. I have to do some research because as far as I know, this place is on Bureau of Land Management land which seems like an unlikely place for someone to post a mining claim. Anyone know how that works?
Edit: Here is a link to answer my questions: BLM FAQ

Well, I hope you enjoyed my little glimpse into the gold country around our house. It is something that interests my boys so we might just need to tackle a geology course and use mining as the basis for our study. We already have a ton of rocks that we have collected over the years to study and identify. I should look at it as a project.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom