ABSTRACT
A. chinensis
Bak
), Barbados Islands in Central America (
A. barbadensis
Miller
), and Europe (
A. arborescens
Miller
). The genus
Aloe
includes trees (
A. ferox
), shrubs, and herbs (
A. barbadensis
); they are xerophytic plants with large, fleshy leaves, carrying spines at the margin, and they resemble the agave or century plant (
Agave americana
Linne
). The word
Aloe
in pharmacopoeias and formularies means a drug derived from the dried leaf juice. This has always created confusion because the leaves of the genus
Aloe
are the source of two products that are quite different in their chemical composition and therapeutic properties:
aloe latex
and
aloe gel
. These two products are obtained from two different specialized cells,
latex
from
pericyclic
cells
and
gel
from
parenchymatous cells
. Therefore, the term
juice
must be avoided, as it could mean either the latex from the pericyclic cells or the gel after extraction from the leaf. However, to add to the confusion, there is also a preparation obtained from the whole leaf (total extract) and another obtained from the aloe wood, the so-called
lignaloe
or
aloe
of the Bible, a fragrant wood obtained from an entirely different plant that was once used as an
incense
(Capasso et al., 1998).
