LYCOPERDON BOVISTA-PUFFBALL.
Introduction
(Bovista, buffen or puffen, puff fist, to break wind; lycoperdon ukol, lukoz wolf e’ pow, perdo, I break wind.)
Bovista, the common European puffball, was first proved by Hartlaub, one of Hahnemann’s fellow-provers, in 1828, and the entire fungus is used to prepare our tincture.
Symptoms
It is more or less strange that the dried puffball has been used to arrest haemorrhage, as its most marked action seems to be on the circulation predisposing to haemorrhages.
We find in Bovista bleeding from the nose in the morning (142) or on blowing the nose, and from the gums on sucking them (84). Menstruation is too early and too profuse (135), profuse in the morning and scanty during the day, or the flow is mostly at night (134) and perhaps with small amounts of blood between the periods (136).
Leucorrhoea follows the menses (126), profuse (126), acrid (126) and corrosive, with discharge only at night (126).
Bovista is one of the remedies having diarrhoea before and during menstruation (138).
It is of value for metrorrhagia, the blood dark (136) and flowing only at night (134), or early in the morning, starting perhaps from any little overexertion between the menses, and with intolerance of anything tight around the body (12).
It has cured cysts of the ovary (147) or broad ligament (127), one case cited by Hering having been tapped twice of from one to six pints of fluid before the remedy was given.
Bovista is to be thought of for urticaria (201) and eczema, with itching worse in the morning, during warm weather or on getting warm (122) and “from washing” (Dearborn), and moist eczema, with formation of thick crusts (66). In reference to the latter Dearborn says, the itching “is not relieved by scratching; hence the affected part may be torn or rubbed until it is raw and oozing, in the vain effort to get relief. This artificial irritation leads to the formation of abundant crusts not to be ascribed to the drug.”
I use Bovista in the tincture.
