The EU regulations 1804/99 on animal husbandry in organic agriculture propose to use complementary veterinary medicine, including homeopathy, in therapy of clinical mastitis, the most frequent disease in dairy farming. The control of dairy cow mastitis is still based on the use of antibiotics. This study should assess the efficacy of a fixed homeopathic combination in curing clinical mastitis in order to minimize the use of antibiotics. The trial was conducted as a double blind placebo controlled study. In a German organic dairy herd of about 300 cows all fresh cases of clinical mastitis received a homeopathic therapy using a predetermined treatment protocol and a certain diagnostic pattern to match right remedies in the sense of the homeopathic remedy pictures. For treatment (HT) of acute mastitis the following remedies were used: Phytolacca D6, Bryonia D6, Echinacea D6 and Belladonna D6. Aconitum D6 was administered additionally in case of fever > 40°C at the beginning of the acute phase. Cases of chronical / subacute mastitis were treated by Echinacea D6, Phytolacca D6 and Hepar sulfuris D8. In cases of no clinical cure within 7 days and in case of infections by Streptococci spp. or S. aureus, after 3 days, resp., the cows received an additional intramammary antibiotic therapy on 3 consecutive days (HT+AT). The different stages of recovery – clinical (CCR), bacteriological (BCR) and total (TCR) - were evaluated by bacteriological findings and somatic cell count (SCC) in quarter foremilksamples on the day of return to production, 5 and 8 weeks after recovery. Because of nearly identical results between both treatment groups only the data of the verum group and the combined treatment regime is shown. 60 cows (70 affected quarters) suffering from clinical mastitis were enrolled in the study. The CCR was 74% immediately and 47% eight weeks after homoeopathic treatment. The CCR in cases with consecutive antibiotic treatment could be increased to 95% and 65% resp. In between the observation period 22 cows had recurrent mastitis (12 same quarter, 10 different quarter). The 53 clinically affected quarters which were infected by major pathogenic bacteria showed along the whole observation period a BCR of about 60%. The TCR was immediately after treatment only 20%, but increased during the 8 week observation up to 40%. Although the use of antibiotics was reduced to 25% compared to the extrapolated value of conventional mastitis therapy, udder health could be increased during the study regarding somatic cell counts and mastitis incidence on herd level. The decreasing input of antibiotics in mastitis therapy lead to a decrease antibiotically loaded milk and resulted in a benefit of additional consumable milk. The results suggests that homoeopathically supported health concepts in organic dairy herds are suitable to decrease the antibiotics input dramatically and can be recommended in organic herds, and possibly in conventional herds as well
