Dengue Fever and Homeopathy?

In writing a paper on the use of homeopathic medicine in treating Dengue Fever, author Gitesh Kalyankar has explained how they identified and used their homeopathic remedy as a “Genus Epidemicus”.

Kalyankar along with other homoeopathic doctors, were called in by doctors at the main hospital (KEM hospital) to help deal with a major outbreak of Dengue Fever in Pune, India.

Three homeopaths who worked at the nearby PRANA centre – Kalyankar, Dr. Manisha Kamble and Dr. Gitesh Kalyankar – started to collect patient data at the hospital.

Genus Epidemicus

As Kalyankar reminds us, individualisation of treatment is the heart of homoeopathy – one of the main reasons it is so hard to develop any random-controlled trials – but homeopaths have realised over the years that in the case of acute epidemics– the symptoms that kill people tend to be fairly similar – so can be treated with one remedy (or a few key remedies).

This remedy is referred to as a Genus Epidemicus. So, a homeopathic remedy like this is not one person’s individualised constitutional remedy, it’s a general one, “the greatest common denominator that best fits the symptoms of the large group of people affected”.

As with both Bird Flu and Swine Flu a similar approach has been used (See Jayney Goddard: The Survivor’s Guide to Swine Flu: The Complementary Medical Approach).

As Kalyankar points out – even though this homeopathic approach is not an individualised one, it is still different to conventional medicine – as “the direction of cure is still inside – out (i.e. to address cause), rather than outside – in (i.e. to suppress symptoms)”.

The homeopathic research team at PRANA studied the data and found the patient picture showed various common symptoms such as; Nausea; Palpitation; Vertigo; Tachycardia; Coldness of the body; Sub conjunctival hemorrhage; etc.

In order to pinpoint the Genus Epidemicus (remedy) the research team focussed on several ‘atypical symptoms’ (e.g. Vertigo when opening the eyes; incessant Nausea; Anxious conscience (as if guilty of a crime); desire for constant fanning; etc).of dengue.

The team eventually identified Tabacum as the most prominent remedy  and gave it patients with Dengue Fever (200 c). (Some people with complications were first treated with Bacillinum and then Tabacum).

30 patients were treated and 3 needed 30c potency and three others needed LM 4. All recovered, including a pregnant woman.

The remedy was also given to close family members of sufferers to prevent them from getting Dengue Fever. Kalyankar explained that this also worked. 

http://bit.ly/VKjKbV

This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dengue.jpg