In the Australian outback, from dry desert to rainforest, the Australian aborigines live and watch and learn. They know about herbs and plants, the shrubs and the trees, the deserts and the forests, the winds, the rivers and the rains. Through time and experience and centuries of persistent observation of the flora and fauna of their natural environment, the Aborigines have created a formidable natural heritage of unique healing traditions.

Of all the peoples visited by the famed nutrition pioneer Dr. Weston Price during his historic research expeditions of the 1930s, none impressed him more than the Australian Aborigines, whom he described as "a living museum preserved from the dawn of animal life on the earth." Dr. Price considered the Aborigines to be the perfect example of moral and physical perfection.

Instrumental to their survival has been their vast, encyclopedic knowledge of herbal medicine. In particular, medicinal plants that have been trusted through the ages by the Aborigines for their therapeutic efficiency.They have spent 60,000 years learning the secrets of nature and are the earliest people in recorded history to use herbs. Since the dawn of human existence they have used herbal medicines taken from the bushes, plants and trees of Australia. The strengths, benefits and remarkable potential of traditional aboriginal herbal medicine are now being recognized and are available to you.

The World Health Organization of the United Nations recommends, promotes and assists the traditional herbal medicine of the Australian Aborigines as it does the traditional herbal medicine of all cultures and nations.

Bob Egan grew up in county Victoria in Australia and from an early age knew about the curative powers of a plant referred to by the Aborigines as Old Man Weed. Bob's mother, Nancy Egan, was a member of a Victorian tribe of Aborigines, the Wemba Wemba. She was very knowledgeable about traditional Aboriginal herbal medicine and shared her vast knowledge with Bob, just as the Aborigines have done for centuries, passing this unique knowledge and experience down from generation to generation.

Bob used to pick Old Man Weed from the river banks for his mother, who used the extract to make ointments for treating skin problems. She instilled in him an understanding of and appreciation for the benefits of traditional Aboriginal herbal medicine.

After growing up, Bob fell in love with and later married a physician who worked at a medical clinic near his home. Knowing about her husband's knowledge of Aboriginal herbal medicine, his wife, Dr. Judith Egan, once asked him if he knew of anything that would cure her own skin problems. He prepared an ointment from Old Man Weed, much as his mother had done when he was a boy, and within two weeks Judith's skin problems had improved dramatically.

Bob and Judith were convinced that this ointment had great medicinal value. After several years of testing the ointment on many different people with a variety of skin problems and receiving remarkable results, Bob and Judith were confident of its great healing value and its potential for people everywhere.

With Bob's knowledge of herbal remedies and Judith's medical knowledge, they developed and marketed their first herbal ointment, known in Australia as Koori. Bob and Judith wanted to find a way to make the remarkable healing power of Old Man Weed available to everyone around the world, so in 1996 AOB Australia acquired the rights to the formula and began international distribution. Thus, Australian O Ointment was born!