The Bugle, or middle Comfrey, is also a Sanicle, because of its excellence for healing wounds, in common with the Prunella and the true Sanicle. It grows in almost every wood, and copse, and moist shadowy place, being constantly reckoned among the Consounds.
This herb (Ajuga reptans) is of the labiate order, bearing dark blue or purple flowers, whorled, and crowded into a spike. Its decoction, "when drunk, healeth and maketh sound all wounds of the body." "It is so singular good for all sorts of hurts that none who know its usefulness will be ever without it. If the virtues of it make you fall in love with it (as they will if you be wise), keep a syrup of it, to take inwardly, and an ointment and plaister of it to use outwardly, always by you."
The chemical principles of the Prunella and the Bugle [511] resemble those of other Labiate herbs, comprising a volatile oil, some bitter principle, tannin, sugar, and cellulose. The Ladies' Mantle, Alchemilla—a common inconspicuous weed, found everywhere—is called Great Sanicle, also Parsley-breakstone, or Piercestone, because supposed to be of great use against stone in the bladder. It contains tannin abundantly, and is said to promote quiet sleep if placed under the pillow at night. "Endymionis somnum dormire."
SHEPHERD'S PURSE.
The small Shepherd's Purse (Bursa Capsella Pastoris) is one of the most common of wayside English weeds. The name Capsella signifies a little box, in allusion to the seed pods. It is a Cruciferous plant, made familiar by the diminutive pouches, or flattened pods at the end of its branching stems. This herb is of natural growth in most parts of the world, but varies in luxuriance according to soil and situation, whilst thickly strewn over the whole surface of the earth, facing alike the heat of the tropics, and the rigours of the arctic regions; even, if trodden underfoot, it rises again and again with ever enduring vitality, as if designed to fulfil some special purpose in the far-seeing economy of nature. It lacks the winged valves of the Thlaspi.
Our old herbalists called it St. James's Wort, as a gift from that Saint to the people for the cure of various diseases, St. Anthony's Fire, and several skin eruptions. In France, too, the plant goes by the title of Fleur de Saint Jacques. It flowers from early in Spring until Autumn, and has, particularly in Summer, an acrid bitter taste. Other names for the herb are, "Case weed," "Pick pocket," and "Mother's heart," as called so by [512] children. If a pod is picked they raise the cry, "You've plucked out your mother's heart." Small birds are fond of the seeds.
Bombelon, a French chemist, has reported most favourably about this herb as of prompt use to arrest bleedings and floodings, when given in the form of a fluid extract, one or two teaspoonfuls for a dose. He explains that our hedge-row Simple contains a tannate, an alkaloid "bursine," (which resembles sulphocyansinapine), and bursinic acid, this last constituent being the active medicinal principle. English chemists now prepare and dispense the fluid extract of the herb. This is given for dropsy in the U. S. America as a diuretic; from half to one teaspoonful in water for a dose.
Dr. Von Ehrenwall relates a recent case of female flooding, which had defied all the ordinary remedies, and for which, at the suggestion of a neighbour, he tried an infusion of the Shepherd's Purse weed, with the result that the bleeding stopped after the first teacupful of the infusion had been taken a few minutes. Since then he has used the plant in various forms of haemorrhage with such success that he considers it the most reliable of our medicines for staying fluxes of blood. "Shepherd's Purse stayeth bleeding in any part of the body, whether the juice thereof be drunk, or whether it be used poultice-like, or in bath, or any way else."
Besides the ordinary constituents of herbs, it is found to contain six per cent. of soft resin, together with a sulphuretted volatile oil, which is identical with that of Mustard, as obtained likewise from the bitter Candytuft, Iberis amara.
Its medicinal infusion should be made with an ounce of the plant to twelve ounces of water, reduced by [513] boiling to half-a-pint; then a wineglassful may be given for a dose.