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| decoctions after simmering and let stand for 5 to 10 minutes before serving; add to infusions before pouring boiling water over the plant material. |
| CLEAVERS (Galium aparine). Also called bedstraw or galium, this common weed is a diuretic, tonic herb. Its tea has been used in the treatment of ulcers, urinary blockage, bladder infections and kidney stones. According to Maria Treben, bedstraw tea rids the liver, kidney, pancreas and spleen of toxic wastes. She recommended drinking it daily to tone the lymph glands and improve lymphatic disorders. Cleavers can be combined with other herbs and should be made as an infusion using fresh or dried plant material. Pour 1 cup boiling water over 1 teaspoon dried herb or 1 tablespoon fresh (double these measurements for medicinal strength tea) and let stand, covered, 10 to 15 minutes. |
| COMFREY (Symphytum officinale). Every part of the comfrey plant is medicinal: its leaves, roots, stalks and flowers. A demulcent, astringent, nutritive, tonic, mucilaginous herb, comfrey has a soothing and healing effect on every organ it contacts. The only significant plant source of the cell-growth stimulator, allantoin, comfrey dramatically speeds the healing of wounds and even broken bones (hence its folk name, "knit bone"). Among its hundreds of therapeutic applications are digestive disorders, urinary tract infections, diarrhea, hernias, hemorrhoids and ulcers. |
| Despite its long history and wide use, comfrey is widely reported to be toxic. How dangerous is it? Mark Blumenthal, executive director of the American Botanical Council and publisher of the journal HerbalGram, wrote: |
| Recently the press created a scare about comfrey root. Comfrey contains a class of compounds that, when isolated and fed in large doses, can cause liver damage and cancer in rats. In hundreds of years of use, no cases of human problems with comfrey ever appeared. In 1984, however, there was a case of liver toxicity in a woman who had been taking comfrey-pepsin tablets. Soon after, warnings about comfrey began appearing in newspapers and magazines. The comfrey incident |
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