Dr. Kent shortened his Repertory by the use of synonyms. In the materia medica stabbing and sticking pains often appear; in the Kent Repertory stabbing and sometimes lancinating pains become cutting and sticking becomes stitching. The materia medica and the patient have throbbing headache but in the Kent Repertory it is pulsating and is found under pain in general of the whole head and pulsating under pain in general of the parts of the head. There is also a painless pulsating in the head. This, instead of being a modification of a symptom, is a symptom in itself therefore falls in its proper alphabetical order of symptoms.
When a symptom cannot be found in the Repertory, look of its synonym. Hammering pains, pulsating pains, radiating pains, spasmodic pain, wandering pain are found in alphabetical order among the modifications of pain in general of the part instead of under the character of the pain.
The Kent Repertory came out first about 1900 in paper fascicles, one for each major section of the book. Now we have it in its third edition with poorer paper than the second edition and many more typographical errors. This third edition was printed by Ehrhart & Karl in 1924, eight years after Dr. kents death, from notes made by him in the second edition.
It is a colossal work, the only general repertory yet compiled which works out modifications logically to great detail. To the student who learns its method and works through it constantly the book is dependable and satisfactory.
Students should learn the Boenninghausen method and the Kent method of repertory study. Some minds are more at home in one and some in the other. Some use Boenninghausen for generals and Kent for particulars. Everyone should know Kent thoroughly and everyone who knows it will use it more or less every working day.
So much for the making of the general repertories in book form; one might mention in passing Gentrys Concordance built on the key-word theory. This is in six volumes and is absolutely worthless on account of bulk and repetition without useful method.
Several times one of our physicians has attempted to make a card repertory by placing a symptoms on a card with the remedies having the symptom below it and punching with different shaped holes to indicate the grading of the remedies. The idea is to select the cards related to the case in hand, place them over each other in front of a good light when the punching will make those most closely related shine through. This saves writing the list of remedies for each case. Another way to save writing has been devised in slip sheets, each sheet containing a printed list of most remedies and a system of squares opposite each remedy in which to write the grading of symptoms in numbers. The remedies are listed vertically and the symptoms written in horizontally. It is similar to mathematical plotting.
Dr. Margaret Tyler made the first card system I know about. Her cards are quite large, very carefully done, incomplete, based on Kents work.
Most card compilers became lost because of the size of the task and the bulk of cards resulting. Dr. Richard M. Field made a Symptom Register on cards taken from all the repertories put together. Dr. C.M. Boger is at work on a system of cards of general symptoms compiled on the Boenninghausen method, with the idea of going to Kent for particulars or directly to the materia medica.
The Doctors Pulford began putting Kents Repertory on cards, but the bulk of cards would be impossible and only a few parts have been done. If someone would put the Kent sections, Mind, Desires and Aversions, Sleep, Generalities on cards and leave out the rest, the result might make a practical card system to be used as Dr. Boger uses his.
Obviously it is misleading to draw on all repertories for a card system, as Field did, because, as we have seen, the methods of compiling are different. One author means one thing by certain words; another means another; therefore the cases will not work through successfully to the remedies most closely related to the patient in hand.
So much for a general idea of the making of repertories.
II – REPERTORY USES.
The following list presupposes a thorough acquaintance with method of compilation and a working knowledge of where to find things in the repertory used.
1. To work out any case to a small group of remedies, with the idea of making final choice in this group form ones knowledge of these remedies or form study of the provings.
2. To help decide between two or three similar remedies by comparing particular symptoms in the repertory.
3. To learn to translate symptoms from the language of the patient to the language of the repertory without losing the meaning; to learn to reason by analogy.
4. To know a remedy better through its repertory grading, seen at a glance.
5. To give on a sense of security in the law and order of homoeopathy.
6. To refresh ones memory in daily work as to particular symptoms.
7. To gain an idea of comprehensiveness of the materia medica through thumbing over a repertory.
8. To gain a better idea of individualizing a patient than anything else can give.
9. To gain a broader view of case study; to see more clearly that the remedy must be suitable from the innermost to the outermost of the patient.
10. To keep ones wits sharp in prescribing.
From all this discourse it is easily seen that the repertory is the homoeopathic physicians intimate friend, growing dearer and more indispensable every day.
REPERTORY LIST.
Boenninghausen: Repertory of Intermittent Fevers, translated by A. Korndoerfer.
Boenninghausen: Repertory of Whooping-Cough.
Boenninghausen: Repertory of the Slides of the Body, translated by J.D. Tyrrell.
Boenninghausen: Repertory of Antipsorics, Antisyphilitics, and Antisycotics, translated by C.M. Boger. P.F. Curie (father-in-law of Madame Curie) : General Repertory, published in English.
C.M. Boger: Synoptic Key, three editions.
C.M. Boger: Repertory of Symptoms of the Ovaries.
C.M. Boger: Repertory of Times of the Remedies.
C.M. Boger: Repertory , Homoeopathic Therapeutics of Diphtheria.
Walter James: Repertory on Rheumatic Conditions (this repertory has never been published and is in manuscript form).
G.W. Winterbury: Repertory of the Most Characteristic Symptoms of the Materia Medica.
Wm. Jefferson Guernsey: Repertory of Desires and Aversions.
Wm. Jefferson Guernsey: Repertory of Haemorrhoids.
James B. Bell: Repertory of Diarrhoea, etc., three editions.
Wilsey: Repertory of the Back.
F.H. Lutze: Repertory of Diseases of the Respiratory Organs.
F.H. Lutze: Repertory of the Duration and Action of the Remedies.
F.H. Lutze: Repertory of Facial and Sciatic Neuralgia.
Holcombe: Repertory of Spasms and Convulsions.
Holcombe: Repertory of Sensations as If.
Wm. A. Allen: Repertory of Symptoms of Intermittent Fever.
H.C. Allen: Repertory of Fevers.
Panelli: Repertory of Typhoid Fever.
Edward Rushmore: Repertory of Scarlet Fever.
John H. Clarke: Repertory of the Materia Medica, emphasizing the causation, temperaments, clinical relationships and natural relations.
C.M. Drake: Repertory of the Foot-Sweats.
H.C. Morrow: The Bed Feels Hard.
J.E. Winans: Cough Time Table.
Perkins: Repertory of Rheumatism.
Van Denburg: Repertory of the Therapeutics of the Respiratory System.
A. Pulford: Repertory of Rheumatism, Sciatica, etc.
Chas F. Millspaugh: Repertory on Eczema.
E. Jennings Lee: Repertory of Aggravations and Ameliorations.
C.P. Hart: Repertory of the New Remedies.
Joslin: choleric, Gastric and Intestinal Repertory.
Stacy Jones: Bee Line Repertory.
Raue: Repertory of Pathology and Therapeutic Hints.
Ruoff: Repertory of Homoeopathic Medicine, translated by Okie.
John C. King: Repertorial Analysis of Headaches with Their Concomitant Symptoms.
C. Hering: Repertorial Analysis of Therapeutics.
Boericke and Dewey: Repertory of the Tissue Remedies.
Shedd: Clinic Repertory, a Repertory of Time Modalities.
Samuel Worcester: Repertory to the Modalities.
Elias C. Price: Time Table.
Edmund J. Lee: Repertory of Characteristic Symptoms of the Materia Medica, which devotes a large part to the mind and disposition.
Yingling: Repertory on Appendicitis.
Yingling: Repertory (in Accoucheurs Manual).
Eggert : Repertory of Uterine and Vaginal Discharges. Fully one-third of this work is devoted to the general concomitants of the discharges.
Samuel A. Kimball: Repertory of Gonorrhoea.
A.R. Morgan : Repertory of the Urinary Organs.
Chowdhuri: Repertory (with Materia Medica).
Rollin R. Gregg: Illustrated Repertory of Pains in Chest, sides and Back.
Wm. Jefferson Guernsey: Card Repertory on Diphtheria.
Wm. Burt: Repertory Based on Pathological Diseases.
Kippax: Chart of Characteristic Diseases of the Skin. (Remedies indicated in pathological conditions).
Henry C. Houghton: Otological Repertory.
Boyle: Repertorial Index to Therapeutics of the Eye.
Neatby & Stonham: Repertory to Manual of Homoeopathic Therapeutics.
Neidhard: Repertory of Headaches.
Cushing: Repertory to Leucorrhoea and Its Concomitant Symptoms, E. Jennings Lee: Cough and Expectoration, printed as a supplement to The Homoeopathic Physician. (should be compared with Kent).
