Download PDF
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Homeopathy 2023; 112(01): 030-039
DOI: 10.1055/s-0042-1750380
Original Research Article

Searching for the Genus Epidemicus in Chinese Patients: Findings from the Clificol COVID-19 Clinical Case Registry

Alexander Tournier
1   Institute of Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
2   Homeopathy Research Institute, London, England
,
Yvonne Fok
3   Hong Kong Association of Homeopathy, People's Republic of China
,
Robbert van Haselen 
4   International Institute for Integrated Medicine, Kingston, United Kingdom
,
Aaron To
3   Hong Kong Association of Homeopathy, People's Republic of China
› Author Affiliations
› Further Information
Also available at
   Permissions and Reprints

Abstract

Background The Clificol COVID-19 Support Project is an innovative international data collection project aimed at tackling some of the core questions in homeopathy. This paper reports on the further investigation of the genus epidemicus concept during the first wave of the pandemic in the Chinese population.

Methods The design is an observational clinical case registry study of Chinese patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The symptoms were prospectively collected via a 150-item questionnaire. The concept of genus epidemicus, including the role of treatment individualization, was investigated by analyzing whether presenting symptoms clustered into distinct groups. Two standard statistical analysis techniques were utilized: principal component analysis for extracting the most meaningful symptoms of the dataset; the k-means clustering algorithm for automatically assigning groups based on similarity between presenting symptoms.

Results 20 Chinese practitioners collected 359 cases in the first half of 2020 (766 consultations, 363 prescriptions). The cluster analysis found two to be the optimum number of clusters. These two symptomatic clusters had a high overlap with the two most commonly prescribed remedies in these sub-populations: in cluster 1 there were 297 prescriptions, 95.6% of which were Gelsemium sempervirens; in cluster 2 there were 61 prescriptions, 95.1% of which were Bryonia alba.

Conclusion This is the first study to investigate the notion of genus epidemicus by using modern statistical techniques. These analyses identified at least two distinct symptom pictures. The notion of a single COVID-19 genus epidemicus did not apply in the studied population.

Keywords

genus epidemicus - COVID-19 - clinical case registry

Authors' Contributions

Alexander T. and Yvonne F. were involved in the planning, conduct, analysis, and writing of the article. Robbert van H. and Aaron T. were involved in the planning and interpretation of the analyses and writing of the article. All authors agree to the contents of the paper.


Supplementary Material



Publication History

Received: 08 December 2021

Accepted: 07 March 2022

Article published online:
02 October 2022

© 2022. The Faculty of Homeopathy. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Georg Thieme Verlag KG
Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany

 

  • References

  • 1 Leung K, Wu JT, Liu D, Leung GM. First-wave COVID-19 transmissibility and severity in China outside Hubei after control measures, and second-wave scenario planning: a modelling impact assessment. Lancet 2020; 395: 1382-1393
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 2 To KLA, Fok YYY. Homeopathic clinical features of 18 patients in COVID-19 outbreaks in Hong Kong. Homeopathy 2020; 109: 146-162
    Google Scholar
  • 3 Malan H. Belladonna versus Scarlatina. Lancet 1848; 52: 330
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 4 Leary B. Cholera and homœopathy in the nineteenth century. Br Homeopath J 1987; 76: 190-194
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 5 Jahn S. Homeopathy in the 1918 influenza pandemic. Am J Hom Med 2015; 108: 160-170
    PubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 6 Bracho G, Varela E, Fernández R. et al. Large-scale application of highly-diluted bacteria for leptospirosis epidemic control. Homeopathy 2010; 99: 156-166
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 7 Nayak D, Chadha V, Jain S. et al. Effect of adjuvant homeopathy with usual care in management of thrombocytopenia due to dengue: a comparative cohort study. Homeopathy 2019; 108: 150-157
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 8 Devos P, Serneels P, Serneels P, Goyens M, Wassenhoven VanM. Survey COVID-19 first peak 2020—viewpoint of Belgian homeopathic medical doctors. Int J High Dilution Res 2021; 20: 51-74
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 9 Devos P, Van Wassenhoven M, Serneels P, Serneels P, Goyens M. Survey COVID-19 first peak 2020. Int J High Dilution Res 2021; 20: 5
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 10 Rao KD, Kaur J, Peters MA, Kumar N, Nanda P. Pandemic response in pluralistic health systems: a cross-sectional study of COVID-19 knowledge and practices among informal and formal primary care providers in Bihar, India. BMJ Open 2021; 11: e047334
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 11 Waisse S. Severe acute thromboinflammation: case report of individualized homeopathic treatment. Homeopathy 2021; 110: 132-136
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 12 Takacs M, Frass M, Walder G. et al. Adjunctive homeopathic treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients (COVIHOM): a retrospective case series. Complement Ther Clin Pract 2021; 44: 101415
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 13 Clapers ML, Velat M, Clapers JM, Vidal-Jové J, Mora J. Analysis of homeopathic genus epidemicus for COVID-19 patients in Spain. Homeopathy 2021; 110: 236-243
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 14 Laville P. Étude descriptive rétrospective d'une cohorte de 16 patients suspects de COVID-19. Short survey. La Revue d'Homéopathie 2021; 12: 22-30
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 15 Jethani B, Gupta M, Wadhwani P. et al. Clinical characteristics and remedy profiles of patients with COVID-19: a retrospective cohort study. Homeopathy 2021; 110: 86-93
    Google Scholar
  • 16 Holandino C, Oliveira AP, Vilhena EC. et al. Homeopathy and the COVID-19 pandemic: quasi-experimental observational study. Int J High Dilution Res 2021; 20: 9-10
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 17 Varanasi R, Nayak D, Khurana A. Clinical repurposing of medicines is intrinsic to homeopathy: research initiatives on COVID-19 in India. Homeopathy 2021; 110: 198-205
    PubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 18 Rutten L, Smedley T, Ives G. et al. Data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic: learning from experience, resulting in a Bayesian repertory. Homeopathy 2021; 110: 94-101
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 19 Manchanda RK, Miglani A, Gupta M. et al. Homeopathic remedies in COVID-19: prognostic factor research. Homeopathy 2021; 110: 160-167
    PubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 20 Adler UC, Adler MS, Hotta LM. et al. Homeopathy for COVID-19 in primary care: a structured summary of a study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials 2021; 22: 109
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 21 To KLA, Fok YYY. Updates from China: clinical and research experience of homeopathy in the pandemic. Int J High Dilution Res 2021; 20: 8
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 22 Tournier AL, Fok YYY. Preliminary analysis of the Clificol COVID-19 support project. Int J High Dilution Res 2021; 20: 6-7
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 23 Jacobs J. Homeopathic prevention and management of epidemic diseases. Homeopathy 2018; 107: 157-160
    Google Scholar
  • 24 Seiler H. The Development of Samuel Hahnemann's Practice as a Physician [Die Entwicklung von Samuel Hahnemanns ärztlicher Praxis]. Haug Verlag; 1988
    Google Scholar
  • 25 Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for COVID-19. (Trial Version 7), National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China. Accessed April 8, 2020 at: http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/zhengcwj/202003/46c9294a7dfe4cef80dc7f5912eb1989.shtml
    PubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 26 Arthur D, Vassilvitskii S. K-means + +: the advantages of careful seeding. Proceedings of the Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms 2007: 1027-1035
    PubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 27 Norman GR, Monteiro SD, Sherbino J, Ilgen JS, Schmidt HG, Mamede S. The causes of errors in clinical reasoning: cognitive biases, knowledge deficits, and dual process thinking. Acad Med 2017; 92: 23-30
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 28 Croskerry P, Norman G. Overconfidence in clinical decision making. Am J Med 2008; 121: S24-S29
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 29 Manchanda RK, Miglani A, Chakraborty M. et al. Impact of bias in data collection of COVID-19 cases. Homeopathy 2022; 111: 57-65
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 30 Kent JT. Lectures on Homeopathic Philosophy, Lecture 3. B. Jain Publishers; 2003
    Google Scholar
  • 31 da Costa Fujino FMS, Olandim AACC, Barnabé VD, Coggan JA, Benites NR. A homeopathic view of the influence of chronic diseases in the manifestation of COVID-19. Homeopathy 2021; 110: 67-69
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 32 Bala R, Srivastava A. Historical journey of homoeopathy during epidemic diseases in the light of 2019 novel coronavirus pandemic. Int J Sci Healthc Res 2020; 5: 215-233
    PubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 33 Gosik MS, Mendes MFX, Werneck Dos Santos LMA. et al. Medicines for the new coronavirus in the view of Classical Systemic Homeopathy. Complement Ther Clin Pract 2021; 45: 101482
    CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 34 Van Haselen RA, Fisher P. Analysing homœopathic prescribing using the READ Classification and information technology. Br Homeopath J 1990; 79: 74-81
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar
  • 35 Van Haselen RA, Fisher P. Towards a new method for improving clinical homœopathy. Correlating homœopathic prescription with outcome in rheumatoid arthritis using standard clinical assessments and information technology. Br Homeopath J 1992; 81: 120-126
    Article in Thieme ConnectPubMedGoogle Scholar