Another feature, very important, is that judgment must be used in the selection of the first or basic rubrics. This care should be taken at the start. This is where the headwork comes in to save so much time. It is a practical extension of Bogers idea of synopsis. This has often been practiced before by skillful repertorists in making a short schema when desirable, but it is especially convenient with Bogers because of his masterly selection of terms for his rubrics (cards).
It is of especial use with conditions having a paucity of symptoms. With many such problems the best remedy will be run out considerably beyond the others. That remedy, if any the group, is practically certain to be the right one.
With some problems, if too many cards have been taken out, I eliminate some that can be safely dispensed with, of course in reverse order of their significance. In doing so I watch for the holes in front of a light and when several or a sufficient number for the particular case light through, it is enough. Sometimes I make separate pile of these lesser values and calculate them separately. Sometimes I make a third pile out of more particular symptoms, especially such as may have been added from Kents repertory.
Sometimes I estimate the values of these piles separately, at other times I add the first two; or one may add to the basic calculation certain cards only of the lesser groups, according to their merits and the (symptomatic) nature of the patient. In these extended selections one must be careful in admitting values so as not to put false weight on certain features of the problem.
To avoid this I sometimes ignore all or some of these extended values as given and mark each one to the lowest degree. When symptoms with their values are taken from Kents repertory one must be careful about accepting the values as given or false weight may accrue. I often change these values to agree with the patient or with former experience. The schema must be fitted to the patient, not the patient to any repertorial schema.
When the closely competing remedies have missing symptoms it is easier with Bogers repertory to decide to which remedy to give this negative weight. This is because the rubrics of this repertory are so potent.
The cards of Bogers and Fields repertories can be made to cut down their own time one-third or more by indicating the values around the holes as one goes on with its use. This can be done by marking a black circle, for instance, around first value holes, red circles around second value holes and green ink circles around the holes of least value, or small figures at the side of the holes if preferred.
When taking the cards from the pack they will be taken out by the name of the rubric. When replacing them replace by number. It works faster and saves time and wear.
Once in a while a problem may be worked out by the book alone (the Synoptic Key, not the General Analysis), especially those which present a very few strong peculiar regional symptoms with little else expressed. But I have seen few such instances.
As the prescriber becomes used to this repertory he will tend to run out the number of rubrics (cards) farther than at first, that is, it will take more cares to cover up all the holes. This shows that the user has gained judgement as to what to use and what to ignore. And it will often be found that the missing notations of closely competing remedies may be found in the materia medica or that the nature of the remedy accords with it, or the opposite, that it is of significant negative value.
The reader may think after reading all this that the less seriously he takes his repertory work, that is, after having become familiar with it, the better he will get along with materia medica; and this is true. Nevertheless, Bogers Synoptic Key is a great little work, stamped with the genius of dear old Boger himself. He was a real German, as simple and natural as a child, but in mind and mastery of our philosophy and art, a giant.
WATERBURY, CONN.
DISCUSSION.
DR. HUBBARD: I would like to start the ball rolling by saying that if we were all as intuitive as Dr. Hayes we could follow this suggested method even better than we now can.
This general subject is very dear to my heart and I am interested to hear Dr. Hayes. My temperament works well with the Boger repertory. I suppose choice among repertories is a very individual matter, as all things are in HOMOEOPATHY. I shall go home and restudy my Boger cards, which I have and confess to not greatly using. I do agree with him that the older we get (and I am beginning to get old now) the less rigidly we do repertorize the majority of the cases, I think because our knowledge of patients and of remedies becomes deeper and broader, but I was quite struck with his remark that to use some repertory in a case is a confession of failure. In that case I think some of us still fail faithfully and long !.
I would be glad to hear an expression of opinion from our members as to just how much they use the repertories, and just what values they find out of them.
DR. GRIMMER: I enjoyed Dr. Hayes paper very much because it opens up some field for discussion and difference of opinion and we know an honest difference of opinion sometimes does us all good.
I think before we condemn any repertory we ought to know how it is constructed and the background back of it. I must confess that I havent used Dr. Bogers repertory very much because I was trained to use Dr. Kents repertory and I was trained to understand how the repertory was built, and unless you know that, unless you know how to follow it after the Hahnemannian manner of taking general groups of symptoms first and then going to particular groups, you can very easily get into a maze.
A great many people have opened up the repertory and, without knowing, have thrown it down in disgust, saying they couldnt find head or tail, it was too big, there was too much of it. But if you take your cases carefully and if you learn the relative value of symptoms, you wont find Kents repertory so hard to handle. You must know the symptoms that are really guiding.
Of course, that is true with any form of prescribing. The best prescribers prescribe on the high-grade symptoms, the mental and moral states, the reaction of the patient to environment, heat and cold, etc., aversions and desires. Take those groups, and you dont have to use so many of them. Three or four general symptoms will frequently lead you to the three or four remedies you want to study more carefully in the materia medica.
The old masters, many of them, would only turn to one or two pages in the repertory, and they had their remedy from study and from a thorough knowledge of the relative value of symptoms. You can take some cases and they will give you page after page of symptoms, and you have no case. That doesnt mean a thing to a prescriber. You can take other cases with three or four symptoms and you have a picture of a sick patient and that is what you must have if you are going to have a repertory.
DR. LEWANDOWSKI: I do not know the origin of Bogers Synoptic Key. However, it stands alone as a short, snappy road to a short repertorization of cases. In spite of that I have gathered information that in Kents repertory, with knowledge and wisdom gathered throughout the entire nation, Kent complied his repertory after making intensive and extensive inquiries. On the other hand, C. M. Boger, from what I learned, practiced in one community and his book is purely a personal experience, and oftentimes because of that fact may lead one astray from the straight path of correct prescribing.
Many times I have repertorized a case with exactly the same symptoms both from Kents and C.M. Bogers, and found a big variance. In many cases I have found Boger omit a drug which was in very bold type in Kents. I am led to believe that what I have heard is probably correct, that C. M. Boger has confined most of his information to his own community and did not seek beyond the confines of his practice to compile his Synoptic Key. However, in spite of that, I do hold a great distinction for what the repertory stands for. In view of that fact I am oftentimes afraid to depend on it entirely, without at least substantiating it by a large repertory.
DR. ROBERTS: Dr. Bogers repertory is good if you know how to use it. I have used it some; I have it in my office along with about sixty other repertories, and Bogers repertory to me is not as valuable as some of the other repertories.
Repertorization means the finding of the unusual symptom and getting the valuation of the symptom, because you realize we dont need to repertorize a great many of our cases, but chronic cases particularly require it — a few acute cases need checking up by the repertory. We have in Bogers repertory a compilation of remedies of highest rank from Kents from Boenninghausens and from some of the other repertories, taking about twelve of the most important remedies in each of those, those that have shown the largest relative values. That is all right so far as you are going, but they omit those remedies of lesser value in that rubric.