rom 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.

The herb and its seeds were employed in former times to promote
the regular monthly flow in women.

It bears, further, the name of Poor Man's Permacetty (or
Spermaceti), "the sovereignst remedy for bruises;"--"perhaps," says
Dr. Prior, "as a joke on the Latin name _Bursa pastoris_, or 'Purse,'
because to the poor man this is always his best remedy." And in
some parts of England the Shepherd's Purse is known as Clapper
Pouch, in allusion to the licensed begging of lepers