Comfrey

comfrey Symphytum officinale, a fast-growing European plant, and its several relations (including Russian comfrey) belong to the same family, Boraginaceae, as the herb borage. Early uses were mainly medicinal; an old name is ‘boneset’. Pamela Michael (1980) draws attention to a remarkable belief first recorded by William Coles in the 17th century. She writes:

He described the roots as ‘so glutinative, that they will fasten together pieces of meat that have been cut asunder, making them all into one lump, if they be boyled in a pot therewith’, which seems to be rather a pointless exercise, but Culpeper, too, while extolling the healing properties of comfrey, repeated the strange formula ‘so powerful to consolidate and knit together that if they (the roots) be boiled with dissevered pieces of flesh in a pot, it will join them together again’.