Comfrey, the universal herb of ancient folk medicine, has many names and helps with its medicinal plant substances in countless physical ailments. Already over 2000 years ago, the ancient Greeks and Romans used comfrey as a universally proven internal and external natural remedy. Even today, comfrey is still widely and diversely used as a traditional medicine of ethnobotany.
Occurrence and cultivation of comfrey
Comfrey was for centuries the first aid savior for broken bones, open wounds and injuries to tendons and ligaments. Comfrey (Latin Symphytum), popularly known as common comfrey, comfrey, bee’s weed, milkwort, blackroot, comfrey, woundwort or rabbit’s foot, is represented by about 40 different species in Europe, Asia and North Africa. The best-known representative of the borage family (Boraginaceae), which is officially recognized as a medicinal plant, is comfrey (Symphytum officinale). Both the Greek name Symphytum, which is widely used today, and the formerly common Latin genus name Consolida translate as “growing together.” For centuries, comfrey was the first aid savior for broken bones, open wounds, and injuries to tendons and ligaments. As early as the 17th century, English physician and apothecary Nicholas Culpeper noted, “Comfrey has such power to heal and knit together that cut pieces of meat will grow back together when boiled with comfrey in a pot.”
Effect and application
Comfrey is a deciduous, herbaceous, bushy and perennial plant that reaches a height of growth between 30 and 60 centimeters, rarely up to 150 centimeters. Its stems and leaves are hard and bristly hairy. The flowering period, with many profuse double wraps, is from May to September. The fast-growing comfrey appreciates sunny to semi-shady soils, especially nitrogenous, moist loamy soils on stream banks, bog meadows and forest edges up to 1000 meters in elevation. Comfrey forms racemose inflorescences with purple to purplish flowers. Its range in Eurasia extends from Austria to Spain to China. Fresh comfrey leaves have a concentrated, biologically high-quality protein content – comparable to animal protein. In Switzerland, comfrey leaves are still baked in dough today. The large, rollable leaves are good for wrapping. In the past, the dried leaves of the medicinal plant were even used as a tobacco ingredient in German-speaking countries. In today’s herbal medicine, it is mostly the rhizome that is processed. The best harvest time for the roots is March and April and the autumn months of October and November. Fresh or dried roots are recognized as medicines in modern orthodox medicine. In addition to the comfrey leaves, these contain a wealth of valuable active plant substances. The external applications of the time-honored medicinal herb are extremely diverse. Its roots and leaves contain highly concentrated active substances such as the cosmetically and medically proven beauty agent allantoin to accelerate cell reconstruction and stimulate cell regeneration. Due to its particularly high allantoin content, comfrey is used for so-called blunt traumas. Its strong decongestant, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties are attributed in particular to the skin care active ingredient allantoin. In addition, comfrey is rich in valuable, medicinally active mucilages and tannins, flavonoids, silicic acid, rosmarinic acid, asparagine, vitamin B12, choline, sterols and tripertenes. Pharmacies, medicinal herb stores and manufacturers of natural medicines mostly offer practical ready-to-use preparations such as ointments (“Kytta ointment”), gels and creams. Preparations for compresses, ointment envelopes, compresses with leg wave extract or comfrey tea and porridge packs are also popular. Caution is always advised with recipe instructions for self-mixing, because externally applicable dosage forms are also subject to medical restrictions. In case of doubt, specialist medical advice should be sought before uncontrolled self-therapies. Comfrey is an extremely potent ethnobotanical. Even the nature-loving Native American tribes recognized its healing properties early on. Comfrey has astringent, soothing, anti-inflammatory, styptic, hematopoietic, wound-healing, cooling, soothing and analgesic properties.The ancient naturopathic knowledge has long made use of these comprehensive and scientifically proven healing powers. Comfrey is not only used in the traditional way as a wound healing agent for poorly healing abscesses, for bone fractures, tendon sheath inflammation or glandular swellings. It is also used as a powerful herbal therapeutic agent for a variety of diseases and injuries: including abscesses, burns and bruises, as well as osteoarthritis, gastritis and diabetes mellitus. Complaints with varicose veins, the sciatica or ulcers can be alleviated. Comfrey is also a proven natural remedy for respiratory diseases such as asthma, pneumonia and bronchitis.
Importance for health, treatment and prevention.
Comfrey recipes handed down from folk medicine and traditional preparations for internal use in the form of teas or tinctures have now disappeared from naturopathic practice. The reason: comfrey contains varying amounts of carcinogenic pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Although these alkaloids have been classified as liver-damaging and carcinogenic in animal studies, they are harmless to health in minimal doses. In Germany, the internal use of comfrey products is only permitted to a limited extent. In North America, preparations for oral administration have not been marketed for some time. Since the 1990s, there have been comfrey cultivated plant species without harmful alkaloids, and the trade also presents alkaloid-free finished preparations for risk-free internal use. The fodder comfrey (“Symphytum xuplandicum”) is a useful and fodder plant that originated in Asia and is now naturalized throughout Europe and is also native to this country. This serves as a food source for bees and provides organic nitrogen-rich, high-quality composting and mulching material. Fodder comfrey also has plant parts from its leaves and rhizome used for medicinal purposes. Forage comfrey is used in ointment form for wound healing and muscle and joint pain. Even though comfrey can be home-grown as a fast-growing useful plant in one’s own herb garden – it must not be utilized as food!
