Should a herb with such obvious remedial value be banned from use? Should pharmaceutical companies be able to buy the patents to natural remedies. Should all poisonous plants be banned or should we learn to use them safely?
A Noxious Weed
Some countries are placing comfrey on the list of noxious weeds. Heaven help us! I would rather see Easter lilies on that list. They are truly poisonous and cause me severe breathing problems. They are the reason why I have been unable to attended church on Easter Sunday for years, yet Easter lilies are sold in every grocery store in my city.
Maybe we should put lily of the valley on the list as well. They have never been allowed in hospital rooms and should not even be brought into the house. They are pretty, but they are also poisonous.
And what about rhubarb? Eating its leaves or roots can irritate the digestive system to the point of serious dehydration, not to speak of terrible stomach cramps.
And split-leaf elder. Don't remind me! I once ate some of its buds. I won't do it again. Rhubarb couldn't be as bad or at least not worse. And that castor oil I had to take prior to x-rays! I only took half the bottle last time, and that was too much. Even mosquitoes know that castor bean plants are poisonous. One of my neighbors has those plants surrounding her house and the little pests don't come near her property.
Oh, how about the psychiatric miracle drug of the nineties, St. John's wort? As a child, I was taught not to pick it along with the other weeds along country roads, because it would kill our rabbits. I really did not need to be told, because I always felt an aversion to that herb. And digitalis. It looks beautiful and has been used as a heart stimulant for longer than I have lived. 
If its use is not controlled, it will kill, yet that plant grows freely in many gardens, and now it is even available in many different colors beside the original pink which I remember from my many hikes in the Harz mountains in Germany.
Pharmaceutical Control
I can think of other examples of poisonous plants which are growing in gardens all over North America. Are they all going to be banned and eradicated? I doubt it. I am inclined to believe that their banning is not so much related to the protection of the public as to the attempt of the pharmaceutical industry to get total control of natural remedies. How else can we explain the patenting of plants by various North American pharmaceutical companies. These companies are paying for international patents which give them sole distribution rights. If those plants are declared noxious weeds, then the pharmaceutical companies will have total control over people's health needs.
Patent a plant? Now really, I thought a patent is given for an invention. These patents belong to Nature. We have been taught that they are everyone's inheritance. Man did not create them. How can a patenting agency grant a patent to a company who has neither created them nor even discovered them?
In case you think that I am making this up, The Toronto Globe and Mail, July 16, 1999, on page 1 reports that the University of Guelph has applied for a patent on citronella, although they do not use that name. Researchers have noticed the plant's "uncanny ability to absorb metal and organic pollutants." They now want to "find the genes that endow the lemon-scented geranium with its rare ability to tolerate and absorb pollutants so they might, through genetic engineering, enhance those traits."
Safe Use of Comfrey
Back to comfrey. My Microsoft Bookshelf CD gives the following description for it:
comfrey Any of various hairy perennial Eurasian herbs of the genus Symphytum, especially Symphytum officinale, having variously colored flowers in coiled cymes. Long used in herbal medicine. Also called healing herb.
Middle English comferi, from Old French cumfirie, from Latin conferva, from confervere, to boil together.
The flowers of my comfrey plants are white, various shades of pink, and almost purple, but an old herbal depicts the plant with pale yellow flowers (see previous graphic). Just in 2001, I noticed that one of my plants had pale yellow flowers for the first time. Comparing the location of each plant with the color of its flower, I have concluded that low sunlight causes the colors to fade. The more sun a plant receives, the darker its flowers. The plants grow to a height of 4 feet depending on the amount of heat and sunshine.
Comfrey has been known to my family as Schwarzwurzel (black root) because of the black skin covering the root. The entire plant is known for its mucilaginous properties. It is used mainly as a poultice to heal bones, cartilage, bruises, and inflammation. It is said to help regrow and strengthen bones and cartilage. I did not hear of its internal use until I came to North America. When visiting with friends in Minneapolis, I was introduced to herb tea and spinach made from freshly picked leaves. I enjoyed them tremendously, because I have always had a craving for jello-like texture.
Since then, I have heard of comfrey's connection to liver problems including cancer. To comply with government demands, I no longer recommend internal use of the herb, although I have recently read that the assertions are based on invalid test data. Be that as it may, I heartily recommend comfrey for the use for which I got to know it as a child. Just recently, I had occasion to test it again, this time as a healer of an inflammation, and that is certainly not one of the uses I had heard or read about. So maybe this herb is more versatile than we know. We just need to experiment a bit.
A Comfrey Testimonial
July 1999: I came home from a scorching day on my feet on a hot hayfield. I had been experiencing trouble with the bunion on my right foot for at least a month. It had been hurting and burning for the first time in my life, even when I was barefoot. Yesterday, the burning intensified, and I determined to do something about it when I got home. My extreme tiredness let me forget that resolve. There was just one problem. The intense burning kept me from awake. In the middle of the night, I finally got up to pick some fresh comfrey. There was no need to simmer it to bring out the mucilage for the compress, because the stalks ooze with the gooey juice, just like aloe vera. I simply cut the stems into narrow strips crosswise with scissors, put them in a plastic bag into which I stuck my foot. I then put on a sock to keep the compress in place. Within half an hour, the burning stopped, and the pain was apparent only on touch. I soon fell asleep. In the morning, I took off the bandage and was on my feet all day. No pain! No burning! Now why did I not do that a month ago, when I felt the first discomfort?
Addendum, May 2001
I badly bruised the bones in the top of my left foot. While pulling down a pruned branch with the pruning hook on a telepole, the branch gave way suddenly and the metal pole landed on the arch of my foot. I now have a large hard lump on the arch and swelling over most of the foot and ancle. When I played the organ with that foot, the toes turned purple, and the arch fire engine red. I no longer play the pedals! The nightly comfrey poultice works much better than an ice pack. Without it, I would probably be lying down to elevate the foot. Instead, I am walking normally. Sitting is a problem, though. It worsens the swelling.
Herbal Sites
Richters HerbLetter at Richters.com: Conrad Richter is one of the best informed Canadians on the topic of herbs. Subscribe to his HerbLetter to learn from him.
Herbalism Links: My compilation of sites, including searchable data bases.
Related Articles
Catnip, not just for cats talks about herbs with sedative properties and what you should know about them before you take them.
How not to get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome also talks about the use of a comfrey poultice for inflammation. That article set the record for the most email testimonials of any I have ever written.
First Aid Naturally: My favorite easy to use natural remedies.
