COMFREY: THE FORGOTTEN HERB

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Herbs And Old-Time Remedies

Joseph VanSeters describes both a powerful healing plant and a favorite cold remedy.

Some time ago, a friend was holding a router between his knees as he changed the bit. Then his grip slipped and his knee hit the switch. Before he could turn the machine loose, it made several deep cuts on his hand. As he ran to the house, he grabbed a leaf off a comfrey plant, stuck it in his mouth, and started to chew. Once inside, he grabbed a jar of cayenne and threw some cayenne down into the cuts to stop the bleeding. He then put the pieces of comfrey leaf he had chewed up over the wound. The cayenne soon stopped the bleeding and he bound up the cuts with a cloth.

Two weeks later, he came to an herb meeting our community holds occasionally and told us about the accident. Everyone crowded around to see his hand. It had healed so well you couldn't see a scar.

The genus name for comfrey is Symphytum, which means to "unite or knit together." The name com-firma means, simply, "knitting of bones." You can use the leaf and the root, fresh or dried.

Comfrey contains a special substance called allantoin, which is a cell proliferative. In other words, it makes cells grow faster. This is one of the reasons why comfrey-treated bones knit so fast, wounds mend so quickly, and burns heal with such little scarring. Comfrey is often called knitbone and healing herb.

This same substance, allantoin, is found in the placenta of a pregnant mother, helping the baby grow rapidly. After the baby is born, allantoin is also found in the mother's milk—abundantly at first and less so as the child grows.

A few years ago, I was tossed off my little black mare and got a couple of broken ribs. Couldn't breathe, thought I'd die. After a couple of days—when I could move—I put a comfrey poultice on my chest for a little while. After a few more days, another poultice, then another. By this time I felt fine and went back to riding.

Comfrey is rich in vitamin B12, which is important to vegetarians, as very few plants have B12. It is also rich in vitamins B1, B2, C, E, A, and pantothenic acid plus calcium, iron, manganese, and phosphorus.

Dr. H.E. Kirschner, M.D., author of Nature's Healing Grasses (H.C. White Publications, 1975), describes one of his most interesting cases involving comfrey: "A middle-aged woman came to me with a large malignant ulcer below the eye and close to the nose. I prescribed a comfrey poultice and a "green drink" containing comfrey leaves. Soon after the application of the comfrey leaf poultice, the painful swelling subsided and rapid improvement was noted. Only a few months after the initial treatment there was complete healing over of the infected area and the malignant ulcer had disappeared."

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