Melilotus Officinalis - General symptoms - Clarke

GENERAL

General

Melilotus Alba ^{Melilotus alba} and Melilotus officinalis. Melilot. Sweet Clover. White and yellow varieties. N. O. Leguminosae. Tincture of whole fresh plant in flower. (It would be well to include a specimen of both plants in the tincture.)

Melilot. was first proved by Bowen in 185l.

A second proving was made by him fifteen years later.

He used both the yellow and the white varieties, and his symptoms are marked ("B.") on the Schema.

In Med. Adv. xx., 321, H. C. Allen published a further proving of Melilot. alb., arranged in Schema, with the symptoms of Bowen.

Allen used the entire plant.

His proving entirely confirmed Bowen's and added many symptoms thereto.

Bowen says of his proving "All the provers had fearful headaches and profuse haemorrhages except myself.

I did not lose blood from my nose and so have the engorgements it caused relieved from the pressure, but it evidently left the blood-vessels enlarged, for since that time my brain and mental faculties have been more active than ever.

I needed less food and sleep; could lose two or three nights in a week and not feel the loss.

My nervous system was as perfect as any one's ever was, except my sympathetic nerves, which became almost a total wreck, so much so as to disqualify me from any forensic effort whatever.

My belief is that Melilotus was the cause of its deflection from normality, and from this fact its probable efficacy in certain forms of insanity and nervous affections ought to be determined." The great feature of the Melilot. action is engorgement.

The headaches and other affections are all attended with this, the engorgement tending to haemorrhages, profuse, bright red, which give relief.

An intensely red or even purple face attending any affection should call Melilot. to mind.

In a schoolboy I cured with Meli. 30 very distressing recurrent headache, accompanied by an intensely red face whilst the pain was on; and with the same attenuation, I gave great relief in a case of melancholia in a young woman.

H. C. Allen (Med. Adv., xxi. 514) has relieved with Meli. "Fear of danger; fear of being arrested," in mental cases.

Bowen (Med. Adv., xxiii. 417) removed these symptoms in different cases ($51$) Wants to run away.

Wants to kill himself.

Vicious. Threatens to kill those who approach.

Thinks there is a devil in his stomach contradicting all he says. (2) Wants to run away and hide as she insists that everyone is looking at her.

Very nervous and timid.

Says she dares not talk loud as it would kill her; she whispers. (3) Mania to escape and kill himself, with insomnia.

In this last case Meli. produced so much improvement that the friends discontinued treatment and neglected precautions, and the patient finally shot himself.

Cases 1 and 2 were permanently cured.

Here is a typical case of Melilotus headache reported by C. F. Barker (Clinique, Feb., 1900).

Miss X, 19, tall, blonde, for several years had severe, nervous, and congestive headaches.

The attacks recurred two to four times a month and were so severe that they compelled her to keep her bed twenty-four hours.

The pain, mostly in temples and forehead, was a congested, full sensation, with flushed face, drowsy, stupid feeling, and sometimes much nausea.

Trivial things seemed to provoke the attacks.

Spectacles had been supplied by oculists and teeth freshly stopped by dentists, diet, rest from study, and outdoor exercise had all failed to relieve.

Meli. 4x was given, and she had only two attacks in six months, and those very slight.

A writer in Hom. News (xxxiii. 124) tells of a Frenchman who came to him complaining of an incessant headache so bad that he thought he would die.

A dose of Meli. was given on the spot, and the doctor, thinking Nux Vomica ^{Nux vomica} indicated, went into the next room to get it.

He returned in five minutes and found the patient on his hands and knees shaking his head.

The doctor, thinking him crazy, asked what he was doing.

He replied that the pain was entirely gone and he was only trying various attitudes and motions to make sure.

Bowen has used Meli. successfully in all kinds of congestive or nervous headaches, nasal and pulmonary haemorrhages, congestion of spinal cord, pleura, lungs, ovaries; menstrual colic; palpitation and nervousness; cramps in stomach; spasms; convulsions; and for relieving brain-pressure and irritation in insanity.

He always gives it in pellets medicated with the 1st centesimal dilution.

In addition to the blushing and epistaxis as accompaniment the headaches have other features.

They are amel. by profuse urination; amel. by lying down; amel. by application of vinegar.

One prover had a sensation of waving in the brain.

As well as the relief by discharges, there is an alternation of pains with Meli. from right temple to right knee; pains in head alternating with pains in back.

A periodicity is noticeable.

Walking agg. most symptoms and sitting amel., but a pain in the sacral region has the opposite.

Many symptoms appear in forenoon and wear off during day.

The headaches are apt to be more frequent in hot weather; but there is agg. after exposure or getting feet wet; on approach of storm; in rainy, changeable weather. amel. by haemorrhages; by flow of urine.

Clinical

Blushing. Congestion. Cough. Dysmenorrhoea. Epilepsy. Epistaxis. Fear. Haemoptysis. Headache. Insanity. Leucorrhoea. Melancholia. Ovaries, neuralgia of. Pneumonia. Shyness. Spasms.