Best homeopathic medicines for respiratory infection

Raymond Seidel, MD, HMD, said that he decided to become a homeopathic doctor during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 when he was working as a delivery boy for a homeopath in New Jersey. As he delivered remedies from homeopaths to their patients, he noticed that those taking homeopathy were all doing well while those taking aspirin were not. Seidel later stated, “I saw that the people who were taking aspirin were dying. . . and those that received homeopathic remedies were living.”

The mortality rate of people treated with orthodox medicine and drugs for the Spanish flu was 28 percent. In comparison, those treated by homeopathic physicians had a mortality rate of only 1 percent.1 Nor is the Spanish flu an isolated example—the use of homeopathy in epidemics has stood the test of time (see Table 1). In 2018, after conducting an extensive literature search, Dr. Jennifer Jacobs concluded that several different homeopathic methods can be employed during epidemics.2

SCARLET FEVER AND CHOLERA

Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843) was a linguist, chemist, physician and founder of homeopathy. In 1799, Hahnemann made the accidental discovery that homeopathic Belladonna could be used as both a treatment and preventive for scarlet fever (also known as scarlatina).

Hahnemann wrote: “I reasoned thus, a remedy that is capable of quickly checking a disease in its onset, must be its best preventive; and the following occurrence strengthened me in the correctness of this conclusion: Some weeks previously three children of another family lay ill of a very bad scarlet fever; the eldest daughter alone, who, up to that period, had been taking Belladonna internally for an external affection on the joints of her fingers, to my great astonishment did not catch the fever, although during the prevalence of other epidemics she had always been the first to take them.”3

Hahnemann continued: “This circumstance completely confirmed my idea. I now hesitated not to administer to the other five children of this numerous family this divine remedy, as a preservative, in very small doses, and, as the particular action of this plant does not last above three days, I repeated the dose every seventy-two hours, and they all remained perfectly well without the slightest symptoms throughout the whole course of the epidemic, and amid the most virulent scarlatina emanations from the sisters who lay ill with the disease.”3

In 1831, the Russian community enlisted Hahnemann to assist in treating cases of so-called Asian cholera. Mortality was as high as 66 percent with the conventional care of the day. According to modern accounts of this period, “a murderous epidemic came over Europe from Russia (about 2,000,000 [sic] victims) with tremendous speed and mortality. The Baltic countries, Poland (1100 deaths in Warsaw alone) and Galicia were already affected. In Prussia and Austria frontiers were closed and quarantine facilities were constructed. Nonetheless, the Asian Cholera could not be halted.” 4

Applying sound homeopathic theory, Hahnemann collected common symptoms of the disease and prescribed appropriate homeopathic remedies in an effective method that is now known as “genus epidemicus.” His treatment was highly successful and even came to be recommended by conventional physicians of the day.4

Genus epidemicus is derived from identifying the characteristic symptoms expressed during an epidemic, such as a wet or tickling cough, high fever, chills, sweating and so forth. These symptoms will point to a few remedies in most of the cases. Homeopaths can then quickly deduce which remedy to give by identifying the outstanding symptoms in a particular case and choosing among these remedies.