While governments and medical authorities around the world are scrambling to muster adequate supplies and facilities as well as develop effective therapies to cope with Covid 19, homeopathy is a therapeutic resource with a 200-year-old track record that is largely being overlooked.
Only a few years after publishing his work on the principles of homeopathy in the 1790's, Samuel Hahnemann gained great acclaim for his successful treatment of an epidemic of scarlet fever with the homeopathic remedy Belladonna. Hahnemann and his successors went on to effectively treat subsequent outbreaks of scarlet fever as well as other epidemics such as small pox, cholera, yellow fever and typhoid using carefully chosen homeopathic medicines suitable to the presentation of each disease. It was, in fact, the widespread success of the homeopathic treatment of cholera during a time when other medical persuasions had little to offer that gained homeopathy many converts amongst the medical profession and propelled it to the forefront of American medicine in the mid-19th century.
Homeopathic treatment of epidemics continued into the 20th and 21th century as well: the 1918 Spanish Flu in the United States and Europe, outbreaks of the Bubonic Plague in India, Swamp Fever (Leptospirosis) in Cuba, Cholera in Haitia and AIDS in Africa, amongst others.
Most relevant to our present circumstances is the success of homeopaths in treating the Spanish Flu, considered the deadliest influenza in history. It struck half a billion people worldwide, killing somewhere from 50 to 100 million of them. Arriving in North America in several waves, the first being the spring of 1918, about a quarter of the population in the United States caught it, and the mortality rate was in the neighborhood of 30 per cent - somewhere over a half million persons.
Orthodox medicine was helpless to treat it, and, in fact, aspirin - the one medicine that was generally prescribed to patients - probably aggravated their condition. Bodies piled up in the streets, large X’s were marked on the doors of the afflicted. It was a scene we might associate more medieval plagues than 20th century America.
In contrast to these dire outcomes, homeopaths throughout the United States were having quite different results. One set of data showed that of 6,602 cases treated cumulatively by some 30 homeopaths, only 55, or less than 1 per cent died.1 Another data set of over 25,000 cases from around the country had similar outcomes and mortality rates.
So far, Covid 19 has proven to be much less virulent than the 1918 strain and no doubt homeopathic treatment can be extremely effective for it as well. To that end, homeopaths in Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Iran, India, North America and elsewhere around the world are currently sharing their ideas and, more importantly, their experiences based on the symptoms of successfully treated verified cases of Covid 19 to determine the 'Genus Epidemicus', that is, the remedy or remedies effective in its treatment. We would be wise to avail ourselves of what homeopathy has to offer in the United States as well.
Remedies that so far have been suggested to be taken as prophylactics include: Aconitum napellus, Antimonium arsenicosum, Antimonium tartaricum, Arsencium album, Bryonia alba, Camphora, Eupatorium Perforatum and Justica Adhatota.
The list of possible remedies for treatment of actual cases is more extensive and, in addition to the above remedies, includes: Apis mellifica, Azadiractha indica, China officinalis, Gelsemium sempervirens, Grindelia robustus, Lobelia inflata, Mercurius vivus, Phosphorus, Phosphoric acid, Senega Officinalis, Stannum metallicum, Sticta pulmonaris.
As we learn more about Covid 19, how it manifests in patients and how patients respond to treatment, it is likely that the above list will be winnowed down considerably. Or it may be the case that other remedies will come to the fore. In the meantime, careful casetaking and analysis of symptoms on an individual basis are the gold standard of homeopathic treatment.
1. “Influenza-1918: Homeopathy to the Rescue”, by Julian Winston <http://www.whale.to/vaccine/winston_h.html> , The New England Journal of Homeopathy, Spring/Summer 1998, Vol.7 No.1
Click here to watch an informative webinar on the homeopathic treatment of epidemics.
Julian Jonas, CCH is a homeopathic practitioner practicing outside of Santa Fe, NM. He can be contacted at centerforhomeopathy.com, or 505-557-6470.