Three roots of weed
The well-known herbalist Elena Fedorovna Zaytseva says:
" The human body is founded on the strength of regeneration.
Every weed is a healing herb! All these hardy weeds show every living thing on earth how needed they are.
I always say, dig up three roots — burdock, couch grass and dandelion.
Couch grass is a mischievous weed that the Lord places right beneath our feet. There is no garden where it does not grow, and folk tradition credits it with helping in troubles of every kind, from the eyes to the gravest illnesses.
For a person it is priceless in the way it restores a disturbed metabolism.
Dandelion is a weed too. Dandelion root is traditionally used with anaemia, with troubles of the stomach and the liver, with swollen lymph nodes, with diathesis, with deforming arthrosis, arthritis, osteochondrosis and all the joints.
Burdock root is the kind of herb that folk tradition turns to for every ailment. Burdock sits on the ground and waits for a person to take it up and be cared for by it.
These days almost everyone is unwell. Serious illness simply mows people down. And burdock is turned to in all these troubles. It is traditionally used with diabetes, bronchitis, inflammation of the sinuses, rheumatism, gout, arthritis, osteochondrosis, broken bones, slipped discs, and troubles of the arteries and the ears.
Burdock is used with hepatitis too. Even with hepatitis C it is said to help without a trace remaining. Burdock root is traditionally used with growths on the liver and even with cirrhosis.
It is used with cholecystitis and with troubles of the kidneys, and is said to dissolve stones in the kidneys and the gallbladder.
It is even used with skin complaints.
During a flu epidemic people run to the doctors and are prescribed antibiotics, and yet burdock root is what folk tradition turns to for flu and for bringing down a temperature.
During the war we had no shoes. There were hard frosts and we all went barefoot. When we caught a chill and our temperature rose, mother gave us burdock root and lime blossom and wrapped us up warm. We sweated it out and there was no temperature left."