The post on smash plant comfrey for a couple of weeks ago beat any visitor record with over 1000 visitors the first few days and several readers pointed out that comfrey certainly also have medicinalegenskaper I do not even talking about the post. Probably this will be the only excursion into the world of medicinal herbs (that is not my main interest) on this blog for a while and of course I take no responsibility for any injuries.
Genuine vallörts scientific name is Symphytum officinale, where Symphytum is simply a Latinized form of the Greek name for comfrey. Officinale on the other hand refers to those plants which have traditionally been used in medicine and dentistry. Even the Swedish common name indicates that comfrey has been used as a medicinal plant - the syllable "dyke" comes from Welling, Thus, the healing of wounds and fractures. An older name for comfrey is benvälla [1], describing vallörtens main medicinala feature even better.
It is particularly topical as comfrey used as a medicinal plant. It has then been used snittsår, bruises, swaged joints, abrasions, eczema, varicose and broken bones [2]. The active ingredient in comfrey is allantoin substance that speeds up the healing process. It can be extracted by boiling of clean leaves and roots (which is the part that contains the most allantoin) and filtering the liquid properly. An instruction on how to go about it in detail here, including advice on preservation methods for the decoction to get up: http://www.shenet.se/ravaror/vallortsdekokt.html.
It also mentioned that comfrey is used for internal use for things like stomach ulcers and internal bleeding. It is best, however, to avoid to use comfrey internal, especially if you use concentrated medium. Comfrey contains so-called pyrrolizidin alkaloids, which are highly toxic in large doses and can destroy the liver. Interestingly, the same alkaloids found in borage considered to be a harmless plant in Sweden. Previously, comfrey right healthy and vegetable, but the knowledge of alkaloidernas presence meant that it has departed from this tradition in most places in Europe.
Many thanks to Mattias Lindström for fact-checking!
Sources
[1] http://runeberg.org/svetym/1174.html
[2] http://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Symphytum+officinale
Interesting as always!
Fun! In French it is called comfrey “Consoude” as does the type solder together. For it to solder together skin. Our friends in France makes vallörtssalva where they add chopped root in the oil filter after a few months and fuse together the oil with beeswax. Should also be very effective in burns.