International Journal of Homoeopathic Sciences

Human rabies is classically described as an almost invariably fatal viral encephalitis caused by viruses of the genus Lyssavirus, transmitted mainly through bites from infected dogs and bats. It is estimated to cause about 59,000 human deaths per year in more than 150 countries, with over 95% of deaths occurring in Africa and Asia, and case-fatality after onset of clinical symptoms remains close to 100% ^{[1, 2]}. Prevention through Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), including vigorous wound cleansing, vaccination with cell-culture vaccines and rabies immunoglobulin in severe exposures, is highly effective and explains why clinical rabies is now considered largely a failure of prevention ^{[1, 3, 6]}.
Despite this, in recent decades sporadic reports have described survivors after symptom onset, generally associated with Intensive Care Unit (ICU) management, such as the celebrated case treated with the “Milwaukee protocol” in 2005 and subsequent experiences, including the Recife protocol in Brazil ^[9-12]. Recent reviews emphasize, however, that the number of well-documented survivors remains extremely low, that most attempts using the Milwaukee protocol have failed, and that survival appears to depend primarily on host factors (such as early development of neutralizing antibodies) and the quality of intensive care rather than on any specific pharmacological regimen. ^{[4, 11-13]}
In parallel, the classical homeopathic literature has, since the nineteenth century, described the use of Lyssinum (Hydrophobinum)-a nosode prepared from rabid dog saliva in cases of “hydrophobia”, including the 1881 report by Berridge ^[17]. However, these texts lack laboratory confirmation, modern clinical criteria and systematic documentation of evolution and outcomes. Materia medica texts such as Boericke’s simply list symptoms and proposed indications for Lyssinum, without presenting clinical trials, case series or any robust evidence of efficacy in the prevention or treatment of rabies. In this article, we review the available evidence on survival in human rabies treated according to intensive conventional medical protocols, with emphasis on the Milwaukee and Recife protocols, and contrast these data with what is actually found in the homeopathic literature and in reviews on traditional medicine. We also propose two tables summarizing, in chronological and synthetic form, the main documented treatment milestones in conventional medicine and the type of evidence available in homeopathy and traditional practices.