Useful and medicinal properties of comfrey medicinal
Family Burachnikovye - Boraginaceae
The generic name comes from the Greek sump-hyo - to unite, to connect, since the plant has long been used for fractures, hence the other popular name for the plant is "liveliness".Species definition in Latin means "pharmacy" and is given for use in medicine.
Botanical Description. A perennial herbaceous plant with a short vertical rhizome, from which the thick accessory roots of black leave. Stems erect, more often solitary, branched in upper part, 50-100 cm high. Olive stem parts winged from lower leaves. Leaves alternate, rough, below, with protruding veins forming a reticular venation;lower - oblong-ovate, forming a point at the tip, narrowed at the base in the winged petiole;upper - smaller, lanceolate, sessile.
Flowers are gathered in curls. A calyx with five deep incisions remains with fruits. Corolla 2.5-3 times as long as calyx, at the beginning of flowering purple or purple, and on becoming discolored becomes blue with white edge, tubular-campanulate, with five styloid scales in throat.
Has five stamens attached to the corolla tube. Pestle is one with the upper four-lobed ovary. Fruit - fractional, decaying when maturing on four black smooth shiny nutlets.
Blossoms in May - July. Fruits ripen in July - September.
Geographical distribution. It grows on moist, especially flooded meadows, ravines, in damp forests, among shrubs near water bodies, along river banks, along roads. It occurs in the forest, forest-steppe and steppe zones of the European part of the USSR, in Western Siberia and in Eastern Kazakhstan. It is widely distributed in Byelorussia on floodplain meadows, but does not form thickets, but grows absent-mindedly. Easily lends itself to culture. Mass billet is not produced.
Collection and drying. They gather underground organs in August-October. The plants are excavated, the seeds are shaken into the hole formed by the digger, the ground is shaken there, the stem is cut off, the small roots are removed, the thick ones are cut into pieces of 15-20 cm, washed, then cut along for quick drying, cut out the decayed parts and againrinsed in running water.
Dry roots in attics, under canopies or in dryers at a temperature of 30-40 °.With slow drying, poor ventilation, the white roots inside the roots become brown, which makes them unfit.
Medicinal raw materials. Finished raw materials - the root of the comfrey( Radix Consolidae, Radix Symphyti) consists of short cylindrical ones or cut along the roots and rhizomes. Outside they are black, in the fracture - whitish.
FS 42-52-72 allows: moisture not more than 12%;rotten and blackened in the fracture of roots no more than 10%;organic and mineral impurities not more than 1%.
Chemical composition. Comfrey roots contain 0.2-0.8% of laciocarpine alkaloids, cynoglossin, allantoin( purine derivative), tannins, dichalic acid, a lot of mucus, starch, sugar, resin, choline, 1-3% asparagine( asparagine monoamide -amino succinic acid), which is a product of ammonia detoxification, there is an unexplored glycoside, etc.
Action and application. Biologically active comfrey substances have enveloping and emollient effect, reduce arterial pressure and greatly stimulate breathing, increase tone and increase contractions in the muscles of the intestine and uterus, promote bone tissue regeneration, stimulate cell growth and repair damaged tissues.
A decoction of 10 g of raw material for 200 ml of water is prescribed by a dessert spoon every 2 hours for fractures of bones and wounds, osteomyelitis, purulent inflammation of the tissues together with antibiotics and sulfonamide preparations, after amputations, with difficult healing and deep wounds, furunculosis, coughing, bronchitis, diarrhea, chronic gastritis and gastric ulcer. Outer - for mouth rinsing with periodontal disease, compresses and poultices with fractures, dislocations, joint pains, diathesis, various skin diseases, wounds and ulcers.
In the past centuries, medicinal raw materials have been very popular. The plant was grown on the apothecary garden in Moscow. To this end, from Polotsk and Smolensk in 1666, 20 poods of living plants were sent to Moscow for planting.
Comfrey root is a part of the fees prescribed for moist pleurisy, acute and ulcerative colitis, acute pharyngitis, etc.