Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Marsh Mallow
Confection with Healing Roots
Family: Malvaceae; (includes Cotton, Hollyhock, Hibiscus)
Genus and Species: Althaea officinalis
Also known as: Althea, Cheeses
Parts used: Roots; sometimes leaves and flowers
Yes, this plant inspired the pillowy white confection we toast over camp fires. But today’s marshmallows contain none of their namesake herb and bear no resemblance to the marsh mallow sweets of old. It’s a shame so few people know this herb as anything other than a candy, because marsh mallow has been widely used in Healing for 2,500 years.
Food for Famines
Marsh mallow was a food before it was a medicine. The Book of Job (30:4) mentions a plant (translated as mallow or broom) that was eaten during famines. And during the Middle Ages when crops failed, people boiled marsh mallow roots, then fried them with onions in butter. Backpacking guides suggest the plant for wilderness foragers today.
The plant’s history as a healer goes back to Hippocrates, who prescribed a decoction of marsh mallow roots to treat bruises and blood loss from wounds. Four hundred years later, the Greek physician Dioscorides recommended marsh mallow root poultices for insect bites and stings and prescribed the decoction for toothache and vomiting and as an antidote to poisons.
The Romans loved marsh mallow. The Roman naturalist Pliny wrote, “Whosoever shall take a spoonful of the mallows shall that day be free from all diseases.”
Tenth-century Arab physicians used mallow leaf poultices to treat inflammations, and early European folk healers used marsh mallow root both internally and externally for its soothing action in treating toothache, sore throat, digestive upsets, and urinary irritation.
Special Blessings
Marsh mallow was a special favorite of 17th-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper: “You may remember that not long since, there was a raging disease called the bloody flux … the college of physicians not knowing whatto make of it. My son was taken with I it] and … the only thing I gave him was mallows bruised and boiled in milk and drunk. In two days (the blessing of God be upon it) it cured him. And I here, to show my thankfulness to God in communicating it to his creatures, leave it to posterity.”
Culpeper recommended marsh mallow roots, leaves, and seeds for their soothing action in “agues I fever] … torments of the belly … pleurisy, phthisis I tuberculosis L and other diseases of the chest … coughs, hoarseness … shortness of breath, wheezing, cramps … and swellings in women’s breasts …. and other offensive humors.”
The colonists introduced marsh mallow into North America, and by the mid-19th century, it was included in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia. The Eclectics prescribed it externally for “wounds, bruises, burns, scalds, and swellings of every kind.” Internally, they recommended the root decoction for colds, hoarseness, diarrhea, gonorrhea, gastrointestinal problems, and “nearly every affection of the kidney and bladder.”
Contemporary herbalists generally limit their marsh mallow recommendations to respiratory and gastrointestinal irritation. Some tout it for urinary complaints.
Thank the French for the spongy confection that bears this herb’s name. They first candied marsh mallow roots centuries ago. They peeled the root bark, exposing the white pulp, and boiled it to soften it and release its sweetness. Then they added sugar. The result: sweet, white, somewhat spongy sticks, which over time evolved into today’s camp fire treat.