[Fleecewife]

OK lazybee, hold onto your hair and we'll look into this further.  Imagine a time many hundreds of years ago, when people didn't take a shower every day, or wash their clothes often.  Transport was by horse ie slow and with plenty of manure around. There was no such thing as Health & Safety.  Most people worked with their hands in a mucky environment and the wars were violent, muddy and fought at close quarters.  Injuries were frequent and help was not usually available. Many injuries were immediately fatal but others, which appeared to be survivable turned out not to be, with the injured person dying after a few days. We know now that the most dangerous type of fracture is Compound, which means that both the bone and the skin have been broken, allowing dirt, and thus infection, from the environment to get to the inside of the bone.  The inside of the bones is where your blood is made, so infection there is going to spread rapidly throughout your body and is difficult to get rid of. Now we know these people were dying of sepicaemia.  Even today a compound fracture is a dangerous situation requiring emergency surgery to clean and close the wound, and requires large doses of modern antibiotics.  Way back then, without rapid response teams, air ambulances, skilled surgeons, a wide variety of antibiotics, external fixation, skilled wound care and so on and so on, those caring for the injured still had to give it a go, by using what they had to hand.  And guess what?  They had comfrey, amongst other things and over the years it was found that the mucilaginosity ( yeah I stretched it a bit) and other properties of comfrey aided healing of open/compound fractures, especially if they cleaned it out with wine ie alcohol, before covering it. So from no-one surviving a compound fracture, suddenly some did, which has got to be an improvement.  So comfrey earned its name of Knit-bone.
Of course you won't find it in a hospital pharmacy nowadays when we have so many antibiotics and powerful dressings. But one thing you will find is dressings made of seaweed, which are perfect for healing discharging wounds which some of the more hi-tec stuff won't touch. Seaweed is mucilaginous too 

[smallholder in the city]

twas a jest. (my comment about the formulary)

You will find a pint of Guiness in some old formularies though!

In fact most of the drugs I prescribe, that are in the formulary, originate from plants. The most recent antidepressants SSRIs have the same active ingrediant as St John's wort, that's where the drug companies got it from. Digoxin a cardiac drug is from Digitalis/ foxglove and a component very similar to Aspirin is found in willow bark and leaves which Hippocrates prescribed for pain and fever in ancient Greece.

[Mo]

Let's all hear it for "mucilaginous" 

Is this the word of the month?

[RUSTYME]

yep sitc... wasn't Guinness ( or ordinary stout) taken to counteract anemia ? I remember my mum being told by the doctor to drink a bottle of stout everyday !!! , iron tablets used to make her puke.

cheers

Russ

[smallholder in the city]

Indeed it was, not allowed to do that anymore though

[sabrina]

As far as I know Aspartame is banned in America, it can affect the heart rate among other things. At the moment I am feeding Comfrey to one of my ponies who had to opened up again 10 days ago after on going problems with his gelding which was done in May. Vet knows I am using it to try and heal his wounds. 

[RUSTYME]

nope... aspartame is perfectly legal in the USA as it is here in the UK ... even though they KNOW it is poison ..It was banned by the FDA (corrupt)  in the USA till 1985 when Donald Rumsfeld ( corrupt) had that changed ...he was the CEO of the company that made it. They are now making it under a different name ...it is in so many things ... even spring water now. 

cheers

Russ

[faith0504]

oh heck will have to give that ago ha ha ha

comfrey also has alot of uses for horses

please can i ask for some comfrey, would i be ok to pm you?

[Fleecewife]

Hi Faith.  Was that for me?  Of course you are welcome to some comfrey - I still have to dig some up for someone else anyway. pm me.

[Mo]

Mine has settled in nicely, Fleecewife 

[northfifeduckling]

any Fifers wanting some, let me know. I have loads, but NOT the variety that doesn't spread (bocking 14?)...

[Fleecewife]

Hi.  It is Bocking 14 which doesn't spread, but all that means is that it doesn't spread by setting seed.  It does spread by growing from every little piece of thick stalk you bury, so be carefull only to use the leaves as a mulch or in planting holes.  I like to let mine flower for the wild bees, then use the stalks, so it's my own fault I have it growing everywhere and have to dig it up like a weed sometimes.

[suziequeue]

When I was a junior doctor working in geriatrics we used to regularly prescribe alcoholic beverages for the inpatients.

Guinness, stout, the odd G&T. The bottom shelf of the drugs trolley used to look like an airline drinks trolley.

I used to have to write it up on the prescription chart like a medicinal drug and make sure that there were no interactions etc.

This was in the days before the research came out about moderate amounts of alcohol being cardioprotective.......

Periodically, the consultant would have an eppi and tell us to get rid of it all but it always crept back.

Ahhhh - those were the days

When we were treating patients with end-stage heart failure we used to "switch from the foxglove to the poppy" i.e. change their drugs from Digoxin to Morphine for palliative care.

Nostalgia........

[Womble]

Apparently you need to add the comfrey leaves to your bath in order to get your virginity back but it only works for the ladies.

Hmmm, not sure about that one. Mind you, if you stew it for long enough, it might help you to keep your virginity in the first place I suppose! 

[northfifeduckling]

Great idea, will suggest that to my daughters, lol.