Alan Levine, MD, a San Francisco physician who integrates homeopathic and other natural medicines with occasional prescription of conventional drugs, has one patient who was so sick with AIDS that he developed dementia, a state of mental deterioration that tends to occur in late stages of AIDS. This patient refused all conventional drugs from Dr. Levine and from all other physicians. Using homeopathic medicines, acupuncture, and herbs, the patient is now very healthy, has no signs of dementia, and has not had a single opportunistic infection in several years.

This case is mentioned because, despite the small chances of surviving late stages of AIDS and despite the generally accepted experience that dementia represents an irreversible neurological change, it is inspiring to know that significant and even substantial improvement is sometimes possible.

It should be noted that people with AIDS occasionally develop a fever shortly after taking the correct homeopathic medicine. This fever is considered a beneficial response of the body to the remedy and should not be suppressed. Physiologists recognize the therapeutic value of fever as a response to infection, and homeopathic medicine seems to be one way to augment this healing response.

Homeopathic Treatment of Infectious Diseases and Immunological Disorders
In order to fully appreciate the potential of homeopathic medicine in the treatment of AIDS, it is useful to get some historical perspective as well as to investigate what homeopathy has to offer in the treatment of viral and immunological disorders.

Homeopathy has an impressive history of successes in treating infectious disease, including many of the most serious and potentially fatal infectious diseases known to humankind. The significant successes of homeopathic treatment of the infectious diseases that raged during the 1800s in the United States and Europe created tremendous support for this natural therapy. Death rates in homeopathic hospitals from cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, scarlet fever, and pneumonia were commonly one half to as little as one eighth those in conventional medical hospitals. Besides hospitals, prisons and insane asylums that employed physicians who specialized in homeopathy experienced a similar success rate compared to other institutions under the care of conventional physicians.

Just as homeopathy became known in the 19th century for its successful treatment of infectious diseases of that era, based on growing clinical and laboratory evidence, it is likely that it will become known in this era for its results in treating contemporary viral infections.

Although homeopathic medicines are not considered to have traditional antiviral action, their ability to augment the body's own defenses suggests that they have antiviral effects. One study on chicken embryo viruses showed that eight of ten homeopathic medicines tested inhibited the growth of the viruses by 50 to 100%.⁹ A similar study done by the same researchers did find, however, that none of the four homeopathic medicines tested for their effects on a mouse virus had any effect.¹⁰ Taken together, these studies suggest that homeopathic medicines can have significant antiviral effects, but it is necessary to find the individualized remedy for each situation.

Despite this preliminary work, it is conjectured that homeopathic medicines do not have traditional antiviral effects but have immunomodulatory effects ("immunomodulatory effects"