HOMEOPATHY is a system of medical treatment created by Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, and since then it has been used both in individual treatment and in epidemics. Hahnemann describes, in his writings, the method for finding the only suitable medicine for each epidemic. This is how Hahnemann treated scarlet fever in Germany in the 18th century, miliary purpura in 1801, typhus in Leipzig in 1813, and cholera in 1831, in Europe.

After Hahnemann, in 1854, homeopathy was effective in a cholera epidemic in England. In the USA, between 1862 and 1864, there was a diphtheria epidemic: the mortality rate was much lower in homeopathic patients. The same occurred with the Spanish flu in 1918: more than 62,000 cases treated homeopathically, with a mortality rate of only 0.7%. Here in Brazil, the oldest reports we have are of the scarlet fever epidemics in Rio de Janeiro (João Vicente Martins, 1849); yellow fever in Bahia, which was called by the people “black vomit” (1850 to 1852); cholera, starting in Pará (1855), reaching Recife, and then Rio de Janeiro; yellow fever also in Rio de Janeiro (1870, 1873, 1875 and 1877); bubonic plague in Rio de Janeiro (1900); smallpox in Bahia (1918); and typhus in Bahia, in 1925. In all these interventions, the records show the great benefit of homeopathy to the population, reducing deaths and the intensity of diseases.

In 1974, we had meningitis in Guaratinguetá/SP (Dr. David Castro and Dr. Galvão Nogueira): more than 18 thousand people were treated, and the results had international repercussions. This action was repeated in 1998, in Blumenau/SC, (also meningitis) in 65,826 people, and only 4 had the disease. More recently, we had a dengue epidemic (a disease that even today, in 2015, is an epidemic in several regions of the country). Between 2007 and 2010, GEHSP - Benoit Mure Homeopathic Study Group of São Paulo – of which I am a member – worked in the cities of Penápolis/SP, Pereira Barreto/SP and Iporá/GO, in partnership with the city governments. We were able to closely monitor the enormous suffering of the people, and homeopathy proved to be very effective in alleviating this suffering, treating those who were sick and preventing the disease in general.

These are just a few reports that show that homeopathy is an efficient alternative to combat epidemics, in addition to being low cost. It would be good if it were used more and more, for the benefit of all people.