The degree to which the human body is called into the febrile or purgative response is equal and opposite to the individual’s need for the disease and virulence of the pathogen. While it is not the pathogen itself that causes damage, it is the individuals’ over-reaction or lack-of-reaction to that pathogen that puts them at risk. The immunological process activated arises from that built-in survival mechanism. The healthier the individual, the more rapid and effective the resolution will be. The more limiting the underlying health is, the greater the risk of complications from acute infectious disease. 

The immunological process activated by an infectious childhood disease is the one that is going to mature and strengthen that individual.  This infective process is an adaptive survival mechanism. Homeopathic remedies can be used to  enable the individual to effectively move through the disease process.

For example this is a case of an non-vaccinated 15-year-old girl who had contracted chickenpox from a recently vaccinated child (the live virus chickenpox vaccine sheds). The pox erupted over her entire body, inside her ears, nose and mouth. She felt like her gums were dissolving while the phagedenic pox spread and coalesced on her body. The Homeopathic remedy Mercurius was indicated and she responded well to it. Two doses quickly helped to resolve the fever, initiate scabbing of the pox, and normalize the internal dissolving feeling. But something more important happened for her through this process. She had been visiting her alcoholic father and prior to contracting chickenpox she had been suffering with chronic headaches for the previous three years. From three years of age she had also been co-dependent to him and his volatile tempers and moods due to his alcoholism. She had always been a pleaser and was willing to sacrifice her needs to not be the target of his moods. She had developed this survival mechanism as a young child. After going through the chickenpox and receiving Mercurius, a  remedy that matched her destructive disease process and her destructive inheritance, not only did she quickly begin to recover, she decided that she no longer wished to relate with her father unless he sorted his addictions out. The process of the disease and resolution with the correct remedy enabled her to separate out of her codependent survival pattern. Her chronic headaches completely resolved. This we can say that this journey of chickenpox was one that enabled her to become more independent and committed to her own survival.