Mallow a natural anti-inflammatory

by Esperanca Melo
(Montreal)

I first heard about mallow from my father-in-law; he used to chew on the leaves when he had a toothache!
One night in the late 1990's I woke up with a sore toe, painful enough to wake me up. After a few minutes the pain didn’t go away, so I got up, went outside, grabbed a few mallow leaves, wrapped them around my affected toe and put on a snug sock…within a couple of minutes the pain vanished and I was able to go back to sleep.
I have been using mallow since then and recently applied a small bunch of fresh mallow to my sore scapular area which had been hurting me for a couple of days (after a bad bodily stretch during the night)…after a few hours the discomfort minimized and by the next day it was totally gone.
I also use mallow added to boiling water with salt for sits-baths and soaking painful areas. It can be used on open wounds as well, but the leaves have to be adequately boiled in order to prevent the danger of infection.