Thlaspi Bursa Pastoris

NAT. ORD., Cruciferae.



COMMON NAME, Shepherd's Purse.



PREPARATION.--Three parts of the fresh plant in flower are macerated in

two parts by weight of alcohol.



(The following paper on this remedy is by Dr. E. R.

Dudgeon and appeared in the Monthly Homoeopathic

Review, 1888):



The Art Medical, for July, 1888, contains a paper on this plant y Dr.

Imbert Gourbeyre, displaying all his well-known ability and erudition.

Although an unproved remedy, its sphere of specific action is pretty

accurately known, and in former days it was frequently employed by many

eminent medical authorities. In our own days, though almost unknown to

"scientific" medicine, it enjoys a considerable reputation in popular

medicine, chiefly for haemorrhages, and profuse menstruation, and

metrorrhagia.



According to Dioscorides, it is emmenagogue and abortive,

anti-haemorrhagic, and a remedy for sciatica. In Salmon's Doren Medicum

(1683) it is said: "The seed provokes urine and the courses, kills the

foetus, resists poyson, breaks inward apostems, and, being taken in

[Latin: ezh]ij, it purges cholera." In Vogel's Historia Materiae Medicae

we read of the seed: "Ischiaticis infusum prodesse, et menses ciere

(Dioscorides). Sudorem pellere, et ad scorbutum posse, si eb vius

teratur, adiecto saccharo (Boerhaav)." It was called by the old

herbalists sanguinaria--"quia sanguinem sistet." Murray, at the end of

last century, pronounced it useless; but De Maza, arguing against this

opinion, relates a case of metrorrhagia cured by it, applied as a

cataplasm to the loins, on the recommendation of an old woman, after the

doctor had tried several medicines without effect. Lejeune (1822) says

he has seen good results from its employment in haemoptysis.



Rademacher has a great opinion of it. He says: "This plant was held to

be an anti-haemorrhagic medicine by the ancients. The superior wisdom of

later physicians has pronounced it to have no such power, because it

contains no astringent principle! (Carheuser's Mat. Med.) A second

property attributed to it was that of stopping diarrhoea; a third,

that of cutting short agues. I have lately used it repeatedly in chronic

diarrhoea, when this is purely a primary affection of the bowels, with

surprising benefit; but it is useless in consensual diarrhoea. I have

not yet used it in ague, but would not dissuade others from trying it.

But the most important remedial power of this common innocuous plant I

learned from no medical author; the knowledge of it was actually forced

upon me by the following case: I was called to see a poor woman from

whom, eight or ten years before, I had brought away a large quantity of

urinary sand by means of magnesia and cochineal, and thereby cured her.

Now, the tiresome sand had again accumulated in the kidneys, and the

patient was in a pitiable state. The abdominal cavity was full of water,

the lower extremities swollen by oedema, and the urine of a bright red

color, which formed, on standing, a sediment unmistakably of blood. I

prescribed tincture of Brusa pastoris, 30 drops, 5 times a day, solely

with the intention of stopping the haematuria as a preliminary; but

imagine my astonishment when I found that the tincture caused a more

copious discharge of renal sand than I had ever witnessed. Paracelsus's

words occurred to me: 'A physician should overlook nothing; he should

look down before him like a maiden, and he will find at his feet a more

valuable treasure for all diseases than India, Egypt, Greece or Barbary

can furnish.' I should certainly have been a careless fool had I, with

this striking effect before me, changed to another medicine. I continued

to give the tincture; I saw the urinary secretion increase with the

copious discharge of sand; the water disappeared from the abdomen and

extremities, and health was restored. I went on with the tincture until

no more sand appeared in the urine, and I had every reason to suppose

that the deposit of sand was completely removed. Since then I have used

this remedy in so many cases with success that I can conscientiously

recommend it to my colleagues as a most reliable remedy. Among these

cases was one which appeared to me very striking. It was that of a

woman, aged 30, who came to me for a complication of diseases. I

examined the urine for sand, but found none. I gave her the tincture of

Brusa pastoris, and a quantity of sand came away. On continuing the

tincture much more sand came away, and her other morbid symptoms

disappeared."



It was stated some time ago that Mattei's anti-angioitico was a

tincture of Thlaspi bursa pastoris, but, if we are to credit the

statement of a periodical lately published, entitled General Review of

Electro-Homoeopathic Medicine, this is not so, for anti-angioitico

is there stated to be a medicine compounded of Aconite, Belladonna,

Nux vomica, Veratrum album, and Ferrum metallicum. I mention this

inadvertently, but I do not suppose it is of much consequence, and my

first experience of the remedial action of Thlaspi was anterior to the

information that it was one of Mattei's remedies.



In the 3d volume of the British Journal of Homoeopathy, page 63,

there is an observation taken from the Berlin Med. Zeit., to the

effect that Dr. Lange found the greatest benefit from "a decoction of

the whole plant in cases of passive haemorrhage generally, and especially

in too frequent and too copious menstruation." In the Zeitsch. f.

Erfahrungsheild., the periodical published by the followers of

Rademacher, Dr. Kinil relates the case of a woman who, three weeks after

accouchement, was affected with strangury. She could not retain her

urine, which dribbled away, drop by drop, with constant pain in the

urethra. The urine was turbid and had a deep red sediment. She got 30

drops of the tincture of Thlaspi five times a day. The strangury

disappeared at once, the urine could be retained after a few days, and

after eight days it became clear and without sediment.



Dr. Hannon (Presse Med. Belge, 1853) mentions that he had found

Thlaspi very useful in haemorrhage when the blood was poor in fibrine.

Dr. Heer (Berlin Med. Zeit., 1857) found Thlaspi efficacious in the

dysuria of old persons, when the passage of the urine is painful and

there is at the same time spasmodic retention of it. On giving the

medicine, a large quantity of white or red sand is discharged, and the

troublesome symptoms disappear. Dr. Joussett (Bull. de la Soc. Hom. de

France, 1866) had a case of haemorrhage, after miscarriage, at three

months. He tried Sabina, Secale, Crocus, tampons soaked in

chloride of iron, but all in vain. He consulted Dr. Tessier, who

recommended him to try Thlaspi, 20 drops of the mother tincture in a

draught; at the second spoonful the haemorrhage ceased. He found it

useful in haemorrhage with severe uterine colic, with clots of blood, in

that following miscarriage, in the metrorrhagias at the menopause, and

in those associated with cancer of the neck of the uterus. He found good

effects from the dilutions in some of these cases. Dr. Jousset, in his

Elements de Med. Prat., repeats his recommendation of Thlaspi in

haemorrhages.



My own experience of Thlaspi is very small. In one case Dr.

Rafinesque, of Paris, cleverly "wiped my eye," to use a sporting term,

with this medicine. A young French widow was treated by me for a severe

attack of jaundice, from which she made a good recovery. But after this

she suffered for a couple of months from a very peculiar discharge after

the catamenial flux. It had the appearance of brownish, grumous blood,

and was attended with obscure abdominal pains. The cervix uteri was

swollen and soft, but not ulcerated. I tried and tried to stop this

discharge, but without success. She went back to Paris and put herself

under the care of Dr. Rafinesque, who was her ordinary medical

attendant. He tried several different medicines without any effect on

the discharge. At last he gave Thlaspi, 6th dilution, and this had an

immediate good effect. Afterwards he gave the mother tincture, 10 drops

in 200 grms. of water, by spoonfuls, and again in the 6th dilution, and

after keeping her on this medicine for some weeks the discharge was

completely cured. The full details of the case will be found in the

Brit. Journ. of Hom., vol. 32, p. 370.



One other case I have had illustrative of its action in the presence of

excessive quantities of uric acid in the urine: A lady, aet 76, was under

my care for a very curious affection. She had considerable rheumatic

muscular pains in various parts, and constant profuse perspirations day

and night. Along with this she had the most abundant secretion of uric

acid, which passed away with every discharge of urine. Sometimes the

uric acid formed small calculi, which gave much pain in their passage

down the ureter, but it generally appeared in the form of coarse sand,

which formed a thick layer at the bottom of the utensil. This sand

continued to pass after the cessation of the sweats and rheumatic pains,

which lasted six or seven weeks. I tried various remedies--Pulsatilla,

Picric acid, Lycopodium, etc., but without effect. At last I

bethought me of Rademacher's recommendation of Thlaspi, and after a

few doses of the 1st dilution the sand diminished very much, and,

indeed, sometimes disappeared altogether, and when it did return, it was

in insignificant quantity.



On the whole, I think this medicine deserves a thorough and complete

proving. It is evidently a powerful anti-haemorrhagic, and its influence

on the urinary organs, more particularly in bringing away and in curing

excess of uric acid in the urine, is very remarkable.



I have elsewhere mentioned the power of this substance to affect the

secretion of uric acid, and then I have seen several cases corroborative

of its medicinal virtues in this direction. One, a gentleman, aet. 57,

who, in addition to other dyspeptic symptoms, had occasionally large

discharges of coarse uric acid, coming away in masses the size of a good

big pin's head, but curiously enough without pain. I prescribed

Thlaspi, which he said soon stopped the uric acid. Nearly a year after

this he called on me for a different affection, and informed me that the

uric acid had reappeared several times in his urine, but that a few

doses of Thlaspi 1 stopped it, and it never came to the height it

attained when I first gave it to him. A lady, nearly eighty years of

age, was suffering from the pressure of a calculus in the left ureter,

which I knew to be of uric acid, as she had previously passed much

'sand.' The urine showed no sand, and was very scanty. I tried several

remedies, among the rest the Borocitrate of magnesia, but it was not

till I gave Thlaspi 1 that a great discharge of coarse brick-colored

sand took place, with speedy relief to her pain. At the same time,

indeed, I made her drink copiously of distilled water, which has a

powerfully disintegrating effect on uric acid sometimes, but, as she had

already been taking this for several days without effect, I am inclined

to give the whole credit of the cure to Thlaspi.



It is not alone in such cases that Thlaspi is useful. Its ancient use

as a haemostatic has been confirmed in modern times and in my own

experience, and my friend, Dr. Harper, related to me lately a most

interesting cure he had effected by its means of a very prolonged and

serious affection. The case was that of an elderly lady who for years

had suffered from a large discharge of muco-pus, sometimes mixed with

blood, sometimes apparently nearly all blood, which poured from the

bowels after each evacuation. She had been many months under the medical

treatment of the late Dr. D. Wilson, who at last told her he considered

her disease incurable. She then put herself under the treatment of a

practitioner who relies chiefly on oxygen gas for his cures; but she was

no better--rather worse--after his treatment. She then came to Dr.

Harper, who worked away at her with all the ordinary remedies without

doing a bit of good. At last he bethought him of Thlaspi, led thereto

by my remarks on its anti-haemorrhagic properties in my "therapeutic

notes" in The Monthly Homoeopathic Review of October, 1888, and he

found that, from the time she commenced using this remedy, the discharge

from the bowels gradually declined and ultimately ceased, and there has

been no return of it.



No doubt Thlaspi is a great remedy, and until it is satisfactorily

proved, we may employ it with advantage in cases similar to those I have

mentioned. But it is to be hoped that some of our colleagues endowed

with youth, health and zeal, will ere long favor us with a good proving

of it, whereby its curative powers may be precisionized. At present we

only partially know these from the less satisfactory results of clinical

experience.



(The following is from a paper by Dr. Millie J. Chapman

in Transactions of American Institute of Homoeopathy,

1897:)



The provings are brief and do not furnish very full indications for its

use. However, from them we learn of its effectiveness in expelling

accumulations of sand and uric-acid crystals from the kidneys and

bladder, also in controlling hemorrhage from the nose, kidneys, or

uterus.



My attention was first called to this remedy in cases of sub-involution

following either abortion or labor at full term, where it many a time

induced recovery.



I have since witnessed equal success in hemorrhage from uterine fibroid

where the flow was controlled, and the growth was greatly reduced in

size before the age of the individual would naturally produce these

changes. Also uterine hemorrhage, attended with cramps and expulsion of

clots, has been relieved by it after curetting had failed.



A member of the Women's Provers' Association took five drops of the

tincture three times a day for ten days. This was followed by a great

increase of urine and a menstrual flow lasting fifteen days. She became

alarmed and could not be persuaded to continue the proving.



Another took ten drops, three times a day, for five days, when the

quantity of urine and brick dust deposit were so unusual that her

interest in scientific investigation suddenly ceased.



About a year since, there came for treatment a patient who had suffered

long from both disease and treatment of the bladder. Thlaspi 2x and

later five drop doses of the tincture expelled great quantities of sand,

and was followed by complete relief of the bladder symptoms and the

disappearance of rheumatic pains that had been supposed incurable.



Another case of similar bladder irritation and marked evidences of gout

was promptly relieved.



Thlaspi also has a reputation in the cure of urethritis.