Melilotus officinalis
Melilot, yellow melilot, sweet clover,M. arvensis · Plant · Fabaceae
Melilotus is best suited to people who are highly agitated, talkative, suspicious, insane, and possibly even suicidal. They often worry about being poisoned, fear the police, and fail to recognize familiar people and places. The remedy is used mainly as a treatment for throbbing headaches with a feeling of violent blood congestion in the head, as if blood is going to burst out of it. A red face, bloodshot eyes, and dizziness are further common symptoms that occur in conjunction with the headaches, while weariness, a feverish sensation, and a hot face may precede them. The feeling of congestion may be eased by nosebleeds. Melilotus may also be prescribed to treat circulatory problems with a sensation of engorgement in other parts of the body.
Key symptoms
- Violent congestive headache with fullness all over head
- Sick headache relieved by epistaxis or menstrual flow
- Intensely red and flushed face with throbbing carotids
- Profuse epistaxis; nose stopped, dry, with hard clinkers
- Epilepsy from blow on head; infantile spasms
- Anus feels constricted, full, and throbs; painful constipation
- Frontal, throbbing, undulating sensation in brain
- Scalp sore and tender to touch; neuralgia around right side of head
Worse (aggravation)
Better (amelioration)
Yellow Melilot - Sweet Clover (MELILOTUS)
Congestions and hæmorrhages seem to be the special manifestations of this drug. Violent congestive and nervous headaches. Infantile spasms. Epilepsy from blow on head. Pain and debility point to it. Coldness but also increase of temperature; tenderness, and pain. Muscular system depressed. Dreams and emissions.
Mind
Unable to fix mind. Memory treacherous. Stupor. Wants to run away and hide. Delusions; thinks every one is looking at her, fears to talk loud, and wants to run away, etc.
Head
Headache with retching, vomiting, sense of pressure over orbits, pallor, cold hands and feet, black spots before eyes. Heavy, oppressed; frontal, throbbing, undulating sensation in brain. Sick headache; relieved by epistaxis or menstrual flow. Fullness all over head. Eyes heavy; blurred sight; wants to close them tightly for relief. Neuralgia around and over right side of head and neck. Scalp sore and tender to touch.
Nose
Stopped up, dry, must breathe through mouth; dry, hard clinkers in nose; profuse epistaxis.
Face
Intensely red and flushed, with throbbing carotids (Bell).
Stool
Difficult, painful, constipated. Anus feels constricted, full, throbs. No desire until there is a large accumulation (Bry; Alum).
Female
Menses scanty, intermit, with nausea and bearing down sticking pain in external parts. Dysmenorrhœa. Ovarian neuralgia.
Respiratory
Feels as if smothering, especially from rapid walking. Hæmoptysis. Weight on chest. Tickling in throat with cough.
Extremities
Pain in knee; wants to stretch leg, but does not relieve. Joints sore. Skin and extremities cold. Numbness and aching in knee-joints.
Modalities
Worse, rainy, changeable weather, approach of storm, motion; 4 pm.
Relationship
Compare: Melilotus alba--(White Clover)--practically the same action (Hæmorrhages, congestive headaches, engorged blood vessels, spasms). Amyl; Bell; Glon.
Dose
Tincture, for inhaling; lower potencies.
Melilotus alba and Melilotus officinalis. Melilot. Sweet Clover. White and yellow varieties. N. O. Leguminosæ. Tincture of whole fresh plant in flower. (It would be well to include a specimen of both plants in the tincture.)
Clinical
Blushing. Congestion. Cough. Dysmenorrhœa. Epilepsy. Epistaxis. Fear. Hæmoptysis. Headache. Insanity. Leucorrhœa. Melancholia. Ovaries, neuralgia of. Pneumonia. Shyness. Spasms.
Characteristics
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 hæmorrhages except myself. I did not lose blood from my nose and so have the …
Nose
Profuse epistaxis, > intense congestion to head and face; the face is extremely cold.
Phatak's chapter on Melilotus officinalis is available in the app.
Read Phatak in the appClassical texts are in the public domain. Educational reference only — not medical advice.
