Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have owned this book for many years (published under the title "The Fragrant Pharmacy"). I have used many of the remedies on myself and my children. There is a section in the book about using essential oils on cats and there's no warning about the fatal dangers. On Sunday we found a tick on our 2-year old, beautiful Persian cat Leo. The book recommends putting a drop of Thyme oil on the tick and after if has fallen off, applying Lavender to the wound. Admittedly this advice is not specifically in the Cat section, but there are similar pieces of advice for other ailments in the Cat section. We applied one drop of Thyme and after the tick fell off we applied the Lavender as written. Leo got sicker and sicker despite daily visits to the vet. On Wednesday he died and the autopsy found kidney and renal failure. The vet said that it looked like he had been poisoned. This immediately rang warning bells for me about the Thyme and Lavender. I have been researching the Internet and have found countless warnings about using essential oils on cats. The reason is that cats are not able to metabolise many essential oils, especially those containing terpenes (which are present in Thyme and Lavender). They can cause liver and kidney toxicity and even death, which is what happened to Leo. I am writing this in grief over our experience and still need to explain the cause of his death to my children and deal with the guilt I feel over contributing to Leo's death.