There is no doubt about it that we are all the sum of our ancestors, and it must necessarily be so that a great many of our tendencies and so forth are due to that fact. Now tendencies mean also the liability to certain diseased conditions. There isn’t any doubt of that. If Dr. Boger can tell us how to get at these things through the present repertory we will then have a chance to find out what he is talking about.
President Underhill: I had the pleasure of going over this paper to some extent, but not as much as I would like to have gone over it. I was so taken up with other matters. There are some things that have been brought out that are very suggestive —for instance, filling out a death certificate—the cause of death. I have had quite a little opportunity to hear discussions among physicians as to what should go on a death certificate. I happen to be associated with an old school hospital. In fad I am President of the Board of Trustees, and every little while I see doctors getting together and discussing this question. They, generally come to this conclusion : “Not what the patient died of, but what you can not prove he didn’t die of”—that is what goes on the death certificate. I don’t know how many points that would count with Dr. Boger. My son and I have access to a large number of case records, records that are made up principally by old school physicians who pride themselves on being very skilful in making such records. They represent physicians who are connected with the largest hospitals in Philadelphia. When I was leaving the city I left this paper with my son and asked him to tabulate such facts as he conceived to be objections to this method of finding the similimum. His findings are as follows:
“The objections to this method of repertoria1 analysis would appear to be:
“(A) The information obtained regarding family history is at best questionable. Even the cause of death is misstated in 50% or more of the histories obtained. The patient can rarely give accurate information regarding illnesses, even in his own family.
“(B) In a large family of several brothers and sisters in many instances each member requires a different Homoeopathic remedy, although obviously heirs to the same ancestra1 pathology.
“(C) It would seem that this method bases the prescription on pathologic more than on symptomatic grounds.
“(D) The repertories extant are very much lacking in pathologic rubrics nor have the majority of Homoeopathic remedies been proved to the point of obtaining structura1 changes in the provers, with the exception of the provings made by the Austrian Society, therefore the remedies listed in the pathologic rubrics may not include the similimum. (Signed) EUGENE UNDERHILL, JR., M.D.”
There are some points in this paper that I can see would be very helpful. This method may call our attention to a group of remedies, but it does not point out the particular remedy. It may put us in a class of remedies from which it may be quite easy to select the similimum, and from that standpoint it would seem to me to be a very valuable contribution.
Dr. Boger: Dr. Underhill’s remarks are very appropriate. Now what is heredity? Heredity is 50% parental, 25% of it comes from the grandparents and the rest back still further.
From heredity you get predilection to certain tissue formation and menta1 bias, to a certain extent, especially as exemp1ified by peculiarities, which are usually more distantly ancestra1 than parental—that is, they don’t come from father and mother. We not only take what the patient has inherited, but we take in the kinship affections such as is accepted in the family as well as the history of the patient himself, this will give you a group of rubrics from which to select the final.
Dr. Krichbaum: I understand that you have one rubric for blood conditions, but what kind of a blood condition—as I see it there is nothing definite about it, any more than you would take any common symptom. And I say now positively that one-half the cases as we get them cannot be repertoried and worked out unless we take something and know that something is characteristic, and know something about the materia medica. Dr. Field says his repertory will do it, but I don’t believe it. The only way to learn to use a repertory is to know your materia medica.
Dr. Boger: A repertory is made in a man’s mind, not in a book. You use the repertory as you are able to use it.
Dr. Krichbaum: Some other fellow might have found more symptoms.
Dr. Boger: That’s true, but that man got Ignatia.
Dr. Krichbaum: Well if you had given him Nux you would have been better off.
Dr. Krichbaum: Suppose you were asked to do a carpenter job, making a wheelbarrow, and they gave you the various pieces and you didn’t know anything about it. It would take you three weeks and would your wheelbarrow, after it was completed, look as complete? We are talking about the finished product. You know this materia medica, but when you get to talking about it you talk about the newer terms. That is what my main objection is. Let us get down to earth and talk things we can all grasp.
Dr. Boger: That simply means that I am to translate the language that I have been using into language which you can understand, that is what it means, and I admit that I am not always an adept at it.
Dr. Custiss: Doctor, we want something concrete I think. Suppose you say a person dies from cardio vascular troubles, somebody in the family dies of cancer; somebody dies of apoplexy, will you give us the rubrics in which we would look for it in the ordinary repertory when the people whose heredity we were looking for had ancestors who died of those diseases?
Dr. Boger: In the first place ail the different organs or system of organs are summarized there, and you see what percentage died of cardiac vascular troubles first and compare it with his past history, and then look in the repertory under glands, if that is what the indications are, or look under blood, or under heart, or under circulation.
Dr. Custiss: Suppose he died of cancer?
Dr. Boger: It would depend upon what organ was affected. If she had cancer of the uterus I would look up under uterus. The classification is strictly that of the tissue affected. For instance, if the infection is in the: leg, it is in the muscular part of the leg, it is the muscular system. Look up in the muscles, not the leg.
Dr. Boger: I hope you all try this method and next year we will talk from experience and not from opinion.
Born in Western Pennsylvania, he graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and subsequently Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia. He moved to Parkersburg, W. Va., in 1888, practicing there, but also consulting worldwide. He gave lectures at the Pulte Medical College in Cincinnati and taught philosophy, materia medica, and repertory at the American Foundation for Homoeopathy Postgraduate School. Boger brought BÅ“nninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory into the English Language in 1905. His publications include :
Boenninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory
Boenninghausen's Antipsorics
Boger's Diphtheria, (The Homoeopathic Therapeutics of)
A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica, 1915
General Analysis with Card Index, 1931
Samarskite-A Proving
The Times Which Characterize the Appearance and Aggravation of the Symptoms and their Remedies