Turpentine: Cure-All of the South

KEDM Public Radio | By Kelby Ouchley

Published March 14, 2016 at 9:00 AM EDT

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K. Ouchley

Until the middle of the 20th century, few people in the South escaped an occasional medicinal dosing of a chemical derived by intentionally injuring native pine trees. The chemical was turpentine and its uses were legion. Turpentine was derived from the resinous gums of pines, most often longleaf pine, also known as pitch pine, wherever it occurred. This resin contains the volatile hydrocarbon terpene.

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Kelby Ouchley

Kelby was a biologist and manager of National Wildlife Refuges for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for more than 30 years. He has worked with alligators in gulf coast marshes and Canada geese on Hudson Bay tundra. His most recent project was working with his brother Keith of the Louisiana Nature Conservancy on the largest floodplain restoration project in the Mississippi River Basin at the Mollicy Unit of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge, reconnecting twenty-five square miles of former floodplain forest back to the Ouachita River.

See stories by Kelby Ouchley