As to his index for the materia medica. I think that is a fine idea, but I think he will find it even more cumbersome than Kents Repertory. Gentrys Repertory is somewhat along that very line. It involves too much, and I wonder who would have to take on his shoulders that task of giving us an index. It would be greater than any dictionary in existence. It would be valuable. I should like Dr. Pulford to undertake that task. I think he would be the man to do it.
DR. PULFORD: We are on our seventh copy of Kents Repertory, and we have worn out all but one of them, but I never yet have had a successful prescription by following the repertory alone. I want to cite just one case that illustrates why the Doctor wrote the paper. We had the patient, the head of a music conservatory come to our office. She had had a very annoying backache for a period of seven years. She had tried everybody, and on one could do her any good. Finally, she was recommended to us.
All the symptoms she could give to us was that she had a terrific backache on any exertion, and the only thing that would give her any relief at all was to get into a hot bath and have the parts rubbed. I went to Kent. I went to Boenninghausen, I went to Allens Repertory, and Dayton and I studied nearly everything we could get, but we could find nothing that even gave us a clue to the case. Finally, I made up my mind that the backache due to the least exertion might be Rhus tox., but I couldnt find anywhere where Rhus tox. was immediately relieved by a hot bath, or by rubbing.
We are trying to get all these good things together in a materia medica that we are trying to compile our own use. In running over that I found one remedy particularly that had complete relief from a hot bath. Well, the remedy was a close relation to Rhus tox. I gave her a single dose of Calc. fluorica 1M. and the backache vanished like dew before the morning sun, and has never returned. Now you figure it out.
DR. GRIMMER; Doctor, will you please state whether it was the relief of the backache or the relief of the patient generally.
DR. A. PULFORD: Relief generally.
DR. UNDERHILL: I came into the study of homoeopathy about a year after Kents Repertory was published, having studied old-school medicine prior to that time. I was initiated by George H. Thacher, of Philadelphia, who was a pupil of Kent, of course, Kents Repertory was the one I took up first. It was one of the most stupendous undertakings I think I ever attempted. Finally I made up my mind I would learn something about that repertory, and so I chased three remedies through from page one to the last page, and it took me a long time to do it. I took Lycopodium, Calcarea carb. and Sepia.
I took Lycopodium first, and beginning under MENTALS, under the mind on page one, wherever I found Lycopodium in the highest rate in bold-face type, I wrote down the symptoms, and went on, a little at a time, week after week, until I had been through the whole book; then I took Calcarea carb., and then Sepia. After I got through I knew more about those remedies and I learned how the repertory was built; and I learned many of the short-comings, which is important to know. If you are going to use an instrument, you have to know its shortcomings, and learn where to find things in it.
So now I can hunt up anything in Kent reasonably well. I finally did the same stunt with Boenninghausen on two remedies, and found that equally profitable. I use chiefly three repertories in my work– Kents. Boenninghausens and Bogers. I got a great deal of the help on learning to use Bogers Repertory by knowing Dr. Boger and getting acquainted with his viewpoint and his philosophy of life and philosophy of medicine. In that way I learned how to appreciate the values he has given in his repertory and in his Synoptic Key, which I can heartily recommend to all of you.
I think that the homoeopathic profession, the International Hahnemannian Association, should get together and produce a repertory free from error, or as free from error as possible. However, simply because we have no good repertory is no excuse for not using them, and if we check our repertory work with good knowledge of the materia medica, we dont stand much chance of going wrong.
DR. WAFFENSMITH: I think this discussion has been amply covered, but being a student of Dr. Kent, I cannot remain quiet without adding to it. As far as I am concerned, I think the repertory of Boenninghausen is a masterpiece in its way. When I was practicing in the Southwest in the saddle and carrying saddlebags, Kents Repertory was too cumbersome for me to carry. I carried a Boenninghausen, and used it many years, and I assure you that it was satisfactory; but as progress in all things moves on, so in homoeopathy repertorial progress has moved on. When I came to the centers of population where I didnt need to ride around on the back of a horse, I used Kents Repertory, and I have never yet in my work seen the time that I have failed to find and to work out from a repertorial standpoint any case that I have had, unless it was my fault primarily in taking the case.
Second, I have used the repertory from a mechanical standpoint; in other words, tried to judge the needed remedy for the patient through the mechanism of the repertory without taking in the dynamic constitutional desires and aversions and variations of the individual case that i was studying at that particular time. So I have felt that when I made an error or when I was unsuccessful in my work, it was not due to the repertory that I was using, but due to my own lack of thoughtfully, carefully and judicially taking the totality of the symptom complex of that particular case.
DR. FARRINGTON: We can make better progress in this discussion, and perhaps arrive at a better understanding if we consider two or three points. What is a repertory for ? It is in the nature of an index. It is only a help, and as Dr. A. Pulford has said, there are many cases that you have to prescribe for where your repertory will not help you.
I was a little surprised at our friends D. T. Pulford in lambasting Kent as he did, because I knew that he had used Kents Repertory. Perhaps we find time after time, as has already been stated, that it is not perfect; in fact, I could stand here and talk for fifteen minutes and tell you a lot of the imperfections that I in my own experience have noted. For instance, some of the terms used are peculiar. Rubrics that ought to be separated are combined, as, for instance, stinging and burning. There is a difference, and yet Kent, in almost all places, combines those two symptoms under burning. You will find under skin and one or two other places he does mention stinging. Then again, under subrubrics you are hunting for certain remedies, you will not find them, but often find them in rubric under the subrubric below, qualified by some other aspect of the symptom or some modality.
Then too, concomitants are almost entirely absent. I think one reason why that is so is because Kent knew if he once started to insert concomitants, he would have three big volumes of fifteen hundred pages, or whatever, it is, instead of one.
I grew up with Kents Repertory. Thirty-six years ago I took the first classic, and subscribed for each as it came out; I think I have about seven copies, including three copies of the first edition. I have, in the main, been successful in using it as a help in prescribing. When I was disappointed, I went to Boenninghausen; I went through others of the twenty or so repertories in my possession. The only one that I did not consult was the Cypher Repertory. If you delve into it you will find that it is a remarkable book. It seems based almost entirely on signs and hieroglyphics that are difficult to learn. The preface says they have made it easy. That is not so, butt it seems to me that it comes the nearest to an index of any repertory we have. The symptom is stated in Greek letters or Old English letters, and other signs indicate the qualifying features of the symptom as the nature of the pain, indicate the modality, indicate the concomitants, and you can get in one line there a whole syndrome pertaining to one symptom if you know how to use it, but it is too difficult.
Gentry is another that comes near to being an index but it is incomplete; in symptom of importance there are too few remedies given, and there is much repetition, because a symptom is given under different names or different synonyms of the same thing.
You have to interpret your symptoms in order to use any repertory. If you go to Kents first edition, you will find when you look for “stys” you have to hunt all through and find hordeola. That was changed in subsequent editions. There are other things I might mention along the same line. You have to learn how to use the repertory, and Kents may be easier than some others. In my estimation, it is, but evidently our essayist has not understood how to use it. It is full of gold nuggets, but as indicated by Dr. Pulford, they are scattered, and sometimes you have to search for them. However, who goes out and picks gold nuggets by the wayside?.
