Bursa Pastoris – Shepherd’s Purse (Thlaspi Bursa Pastoris)

The mother tincture is prepared from the fresh aerial parts of the flowering plant, Capsella bursa-pastoris [L.] Medik. N.O. Cruciferae.

The main indications are:

Haemorrhages. Metrorrhagia. Menorrhagia. Haematuria.

In the first world war, when extracts of Bursa Pastoris were introduced for haemo- static purposes because of a shortage of Secale, a noticeable agreement emerged as to the action of both substances.

Admittedly the provings provide other kinds of symptoms, such as restless sleep with frequent waking and confused, unpleasant dreams, vertigo, as if intoxicated, worse on rising from crouching, pressing frontal headache, worse towards evening, sensation as of dust in the eyes in the morning, buzzing noise in the ear after exer- tion as if an insect had got into it, hearing impairment and pains in the ears, scurfy eruption behind the ears, epistaxis, etc. However, in practice the remedy is used al- most exclusively in abnormal bleeding, uterine fibroids, leucorrhoea with great weakness, haematuria, bloody diarrhoea, haemorrhoidal bleeding, chronic cystitis, sand in the urine and kidney stones, and in gouty diathesis.

In one case of haemorrhage from mammary tumours, all other haemostatic meas- ures having failed, it was finally Bursa Pastoris in daily injections – later every other day – which stopped the flow. The carcinoma itself was gradually re-absorbed – ad- mittedly not completely at the time of writing – with alternating injections of Bursa Pastoris and Asterias Rubens.

The German Monograph-Preparation Commission for the Homoeopathic Field of Therapy has, under the Preparation Monograph for Capsella bursa pastoris, Thlaspi bursa pastoris, published the following indication(s) in the German Bundesanzeiger (German Federal Gazette) for bursa pastoris: lithiasis; uterine haemorrhages; mu- cosal haemorrhages.