In the throws of the world-wide awareness of epidemics I do not want to let the homeopathic view go unmentioned here.
The kind of homeopathy I mostly cherish and trust is the so called constitutional approach, where a person receives one homeopathic remedy that addresses the underlying pattern in their mental, emotional, and physical symptomatology. This remedy has the capacity to bring the organism back to balance, consequently bringing health to the person, letting the vital force take care of removing the disease along with the symptoms.
Nevertheless homeopathy can be used in a variety of other ways. It can be used without covering all the symptoms one has. The remedy does have to cover some major symptoms in order to be effective but not necessarily all. An example for this is an acute illness, where the acute ill has overpowered the person's regular tendencies and thus a remedy that matches the symptoms of the acute illness (but not the rest of the chronic ailments of the person) can be curative. The bigger the impact of the "assault" or "trauma", the less person-specific the reaction will be. To give a first aid example, if five people get hit on the head by a stick, most probably all five of them will have the same reaction: a bump will grow at the spot, it will be tender and painful. This looser need for person specificity (which is a trademark of homeopathy) is a characteristic of homeopathic first aid and acute prescribing. The fact that it is not essential to match the remedy to all of one's underlying patterns is the reason that people can use homeopathic remedies on their own in these acute and first aid situations. No need to study the case in its all complexities.
What happens in an epidemic?
An epidemic is a very virulent acute ailment that attacks a great majority of people. In a powerful flu epidemic more people get sick than in a regular seasonal flu and the symptoms they get sick with are less varied. Usually a distinctive set of potent symptoms develops in all people afflicted. If you are familiar with homeopathy, you know that we use remedies to address a specific set of symptoms. In an epidemic this set of symptoms will be that well-identified small group of dominant symptoms that people get sick with. Because of these well-identifiable features one will not need to study carefully the specific subset of symptom each person gets sick with and give a different, person-specific remedy but rather, with great certainty can recommend the one remedy that fits the characteristic symptoms. This one remedy is called the "genus epidemicus".
In the current flu epidemic many homeopaths have been working on identifying the genus epidemicus and tracing the success rate of this remedy. One of the useful tools is http://www.hersculaboratoryflu.org/research/swineFlu_1.html
On this site you can read more about the flu and the specific remedy, Nux vomica, that was identified as the genus epidemicus.
