agk’s Library of Herbal First Aide
A bone can be crushed, fractured, broken clean through or shattered. The first step in healing a broken bone is putting it back in place. People go to doctors to have this done, but even here the right herb can assist the job.
In order to be re-set appropriately the muscles surrounding it need to be relaxed so that the bone will slide back into place easily. Not only tension in the muscles but a lack of lubrication (explained in the chapter of The Earthwise Herbal on the muscular and skeletal system) will prevent the muscles and bones from sliding back into place.
Some know-it-all in the nineteenth century stated as a fact that boneset was never used for setting bones despite the name. Rather, the name came from its use in fevers that caused deep aching in the bones like they were broken or crushed. Indeed, it does work for just these kinds of fevers, but it is also a superlative remedy for setting broken bones. Indeed, the name for the plant in Anishinabe-Ojibwe (and probably other northern dialects of Algonquin) means “to repair bone.”
This herb is famous for setting bones and is sometimes called “knitbone.” However, even here it can be problematical. One of my students broke a carpal in his wrist. “Oh, no, I’m going to have to go to the doctor,” he thought. Then he thought again. “Wait a second, I’m a chiropractor, I can figure this out on my own.” He went to the office of a peer and got an x-ray to confirm the break, then he make a simple temporary cast. He put comfrey on the back of the hand every morning and night. After a weak the bone was healing but there was a big bony callus on the hand so he had to stop using it. Another friend showed me exactly the same kind of callused broken bone on his hand.
Recommended by Gerard to prevent or remove swellings on the bone after breaks. Solomon’s seal rhizome looks like the periosteum on a bone and probably has an affinity for this part of the bone. In addition, it acts on the cartilage and collagen, so it is likely that it helps restore bones that have lost their collagen fibers. These are what keep the bone flexible.
Mullein is another remedy, like boneset, that helps lubricate the bones and get them back into the right place, so that they can heal. It can also be said to “bring the bones together,” as the following story shows.
A friend of mine who requested anonymity was working in a hospital where she attended a patient who was stuck in non-recovery after an operation on the heart. As is customary in open heart surgery the surgeons sawed the xiphoid bone over the heart in order to winch aside the rib cage to gain access to the inner sanctum of the chest. After the operation, which was a success as far as the surgery went, the chest was closed up and the bones were drawn back together with the expectation that they would heal together. Unfortunately, some kind of bacteria got into the wound, the area became infected and the patient lay in this terrible condition in the hospital bed for three months. One antibiotic after another was tried. Finally my friend got tried of the situation and simply put some mullein on the chest around the wound. The infection subsided, healing set in quickly and the doctors were soon patting themselves on the shoulders about how this or that antibiotic must have been the one that turned the case. My friend couldn’t reveal the real healer for fear of loosing her job, but I can tell the story from a safe distance.
------------------------------------------- from Matthew Wood: THE EARTHWISE HERBAL © 2008–2009 North Atlantic Books (two vols) -------------------------------------------