A Working Herbal Dispensary by Jones Lucy;

Author:Jones, Lucy;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aeon Books Ltd.

Historical applications

London apothecaries were supplied with the roots of Marshmallow by herb women who dug the roots from the salt marshes of the Thames Estuary. It was an essential herb in the household physic garden for ‘Belly, Stone, Reins, Kidneys, Bladder, Coughs, Shortness of Breath, Wheesing, Excoriation of the Guts, Ruptures, Cramp, Convulsions, the King's Evil, Kernels, Chin-cough [whooping cough], Wounds, Bruises, Falls, Blows, Muscles, Morphew, Sun Burning’, as Culpeper wrote.

Gerard wrote of Marshmallow roots that they are: ‘thicke, tough, white within’ and containing ‘a clammie and slimie juice’, and Culpeper said that laying this mucilaginous juice in water ‘will thicken it…as if it were jelly’. He described Marshmallow roots, when boiled in water ‘help to open the body and are very convenient to the hot agues’. Culpeper also described the application of boiled Marshmallow leaves as a poultice on the breasts of wet nurses to enhance lactation, and that this treatment could help to resolve ‘inflammations or swellings’ in women's breasts. Marshmallow is clearly working on many levels here.

It is also fascinating to note that Pliny thought that Marshmallow was good for all diseases, but it was especially good for ‘the falling sickness’ (seizures). We can see here how an historical source provides a tantalizing glimpse into a lost or forgotten action of a familiar herb.

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