(The following paper on this remedy is by Dr. E. R. Dudgeon and appeared in the Monthly Homœopathic Review, 1888):
The Art Médical, for July, 1888, contains a paper on this plant by 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 hæmorrhages, and profuse menstruation, and metrorrhagia.
According to Dioscorides, it is emmenagogue and abortive, anti-hæmorrhagic, and a remedy for sciatica. In Salmon's Doren Medicum (1683) it is said: "The seed provokes urine and the courses, kills the fœtus, resists poyson, breaks inward apostems, and, being taken in ǯij, it purges cholera." In Vogel's Historia Materiæ Medicæ we read of the seed: "Ischiaticis infusum prodesse, et menses ciere (Dioscorides). Sudorem pellere, et ad scorbutum posse, si eb vius teratur, adiecto saccharo (Bœrhaav)." 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 hæmoptysis.
Rademacher has a great opinion of it. He says: "This plant was held to be an anti-hæmorrhagic 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 diarrhœa; a third, that of cutting short agues. I have lately used it repeatedly in chronic diarrhœa, when this is purely a primary affection of the bowels, with surprising benefit; but it is useless in consensual diarrhœa. 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 œdema, 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 hæmaturia 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-Homœopathic 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 Homœopathy, 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 hæmorrhage 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 hæmorrhage 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 hæmorrhage, 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 hæmorrhage ceased. He found it useful in hæmorrhage 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 hæmorrhages.
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, æt 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-hæmorrhagic, 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.