“One interesting story is that of a registered nurse in Provo, Utah. Her 14-year-old boy broke his arm, so she rushed him to the Dugway Proving Grounds Hospital to be taken care of, as they are ex-army people. When the doctor x-rayed the arm, he told them the bone was clean broken, so clean that he would have to put the boy into a brace for a few days until knitting started, and then into a cast. He put on the brace and told them to come back in five days. The nurse told us she was anxious to get home and use the information she had learned in the lectures on comfrey. The arm was bare so on arriving home she put comfrey poultices and fomentations around the arm, and as she said, she gave him comfrey tea, comfrey green drink, comfrey tablets and capsules, and put comfrey into salads and steamed comfrey as a vegetable -- in fact, she got comfrey into him every way she could think of.

In five days she took him back to Dugway to get the cast on and when the doctor came out of the dark room with the new x-ray he said, 'What have you done to this boy?' the nurse said, 'What do you mean doctor' his answering retort was, 'Don't be coy with me. You're a registered nurse and this boy's arm is completely healed and the bone knit together without a hairline crack -- it is perfect in five days- what did you use?' So she told him. Here was a boy healed of a broken bone in five days, x-rays before and after for proof (the fastest bone healing we know of).”

~excerpted from the article “Comfrey -- Heaven's Gift to Man” by Dr. John R. Christopher, M.H., The Herbalist, Volume 1, Number 5, 1976.

Another story from the same article:

“A lady managing a china shop in Provo, Utah, came to us a few years ago, asking if a friend of hers could be helped. She said one-and-a-half vertebras had deteriorated completely in her back, and the vertebrae below and above were so weak that fusing could not be done.

She could not sit up or walk, but just lay there waiting for the spine to continue deteriorating until she died. We told the lady that her friend could be helped if she would follow our instructions. The back was to be kept with fomentations and/or poultices of comfrey on it, and she was put onto the mucusless diet and lots of fresh raw juice and many cups of comfrey tea each day, slippery elm gruel and a nerve palliative tea combination.

In six months, the one and one-half vertebrae grew back in the same form as before (the good Lord left plans and specifications) in the form of cartilage so the woman could sit and walk again. In another six months, the cartilage turned into bone and she had a perfect back from neck through tailbone with no more trouble. The physician took x-rays of the back with vertebrae gone and later again with them back in place, built like new by the body.”

There are so many fabulous comfrey stories they could literally fill a 500-page book. We hope this column has inspired you to make sure you have it growing in your backyard. If not, reserve a place in your yard for it and consult with your community master gardeners about obtaining a few fresh roots.

 

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