Doctor, I have talked to Dr. Boger myself about it several times, and I said I thought he was making a mistake, that he didnt include the remedies that are less frequently used, not valued as much as the others, for when I come to the point where I repertorize a case I want to know the whole materia medica in a repertorization, and the only way you can get it is to take in unabridged dictionary, if I might so express it, not an abridged one, because some of those remedies will come through with only one of the lowest valuations, one of the second valuations, and when you get through you have skipped, perhaps, the very thing that you want because you have skipped that one low valuation and your sum total doesnt work up. That is my objection, primarily, to Bogers repertory.
I do believe that all repertories are good in their place. We are all really waiting for the right kind. Sometimes some cases are more applicable to one repertory than they are to others. Once in a while I get a case that I repertorize by Kent. You may say that is natural, because most everybody in this room probably uses Kent exclusively, but I dont.
The most absolutely sure repertory in this world is Boenninghausens. As has been said, it is nearly fool proof. You get symptomatic and numerical totality. Not only do you get absolute totality, but you are going to get evaluation along with it.
Boenninghausen was the first one to evaluate remedies, and his valuation in five different evaluations is a very valuable thing for us to follow up.
I think we all tend to rely on some repertory, and everyone has his own ideas of how he can work best.
DR. FARRINGTON: I am one of those who does not depend exclusively on Kent. If the symptoms of the case are sufficiently characteristic, I usually use Kent because I can repertorize my case more quickly.
Like Dr. Grimmer, I was brought up with Kents repertory. I started to subscribe for it and took it as it came out. When the symptoms are more or less common I turn to Boger or Boenninghausen. I think Dr. Roberts is right, that Bogers repertory is somewhat limited and does not contain remedies which, in the unusual case, you may need. Especially is that true of the Synoptic Key itself. If you want to work out some cases with that, or even at the bedside if you undertake to refer to a rubric to refresh your mind, very often you will find the remedy that you know ought to be there and you think the patient ought to have is lacking. The last edition is much better in that respect than the earlier one.
I dont agree with the essayist that you admit failure when you refer to your repertory; when you consider the enormous amount of symptoms that are involved and the long list of remedies, the long intricacies and various phases, any one of which may be the one you need, I dont think you are admitting failure at all. I think you are simply admitting that you are human. It is impossible for any mind to grasp the entire materia medica, just as much as it is impossible for any human mind to be able to enumerate the various phases of sickness in the various constitutions that will come to him for him to prescribe for them.
I dont believe that Bogers repertory is fool-proof and I dont believe that Boenninghausens is, either. In other words, we may not all be fools but, as I say, we are human.
Take for instance Boenninghausen. He deals in generalities, but when you come to a remedy that has two general phases, as for instance where part of the symptoms are worse by motion and part of the symptoms are relieved by motion, unless you watch yourself you are going to be led astray. I understand that if you know how to use Boenninghausen you can get around that.
I wish I could remember some of the things my father said regarding Boenninghausen years ago. It is quite an extensive review and some of these days I am going to look it up if I ever write on repertory, and give some of his suggestions. One is on this matter of the bi-phasic qualities of remedy. I think probably Dr. Roberts would like to get up and answer me on that question. I see him looking at me. for the beginner, and those not quite well up on repertorization, I think it is a fact.
The older men didnt have any repertories. As he says, Boenninghausen was the first one that evaluated the various symptoms as to their importance. They, in my estimation, depended more on experience in their own practice and the impressions on their minds of remedy individuality, and prescribed not so much on the symptoms as the almost intangible thing that they saw in a patient. Moreover, most of them were provers themselves. They had felt the action of the remedy in their very tissues, and they understood remedies a great deal better than we do. We can not go back to those days very well and we dont have to, but among the three thousand remedies we have in the pharmacy and the millions of symptoms we have to deal with we have got to use a repertory some time.
DR. DIXON: I havent arrived at the stage where I can do without the repertory. I may when I grow up. I hope so.
Our discussion here points significantly to the fact that we are individuals and pick our own best instrument to help us out of our troubles. I dont think it was a significant statement at all of Dr. Roberts when he said he used Boenninghausen because it was fool-proof. That man is no fool, and I agree with Dr. Farrington when he says he doesnt think it is fool-proof. We can all make mistakes, and I guess we all do, and probably I am a Kent man because I had intensive training in Kent. I suspect that Dr. Roberts is Boenninghausen because he spent his life with Boenninghausen and he has it at his elbow all the while, and more power to him!.
But what I want to stress is the fact that I cant do good work without a repertory right at my elbow, and if we would all use it on practically every case I am not afraid but what we would raise our standards above what they are — any mans, I dont care how intuitive he may be, if he tries to practice medicine without it.
Take the well-known characteristics of remedies, like the 3:00 a. m. aggravation of Kali carbonicum. If we have a 3:00 a. m. aggravation all materia men think of Kali carbonicum. They dont think of the other remedies in the rubric of Kents. There are twenty-one, I think, and although that may be an outstanding symptom of the individual case you are working up, yet it isnt every time that Kali carbonicum is going to come out your remedy. It may be some obscure remedy in that rubric that I myself wouldnt think of if I didnt refresh my knowledge by going to the repertory.
DR. ROBERTS: I wish to correct Dr. Farrington to this extent: Samuel Hahnemann used Boenninghausen, the first edition. There have been seven of them, and another one coming alone, so they did have access to repertories and used them.
DR. KAPLOWE: I dont know very much about Boger or Kent. I have used Boenninghausen, naturally, because Dr. Roberts taught me how. That is about the only method I use. I feel that his repertory is based on deductions and facts and is perhaps one of the greatest generalizations we have in, shall I say, the world. It is based, of course, on the concept that an aggravation in one part of the body, or a condition which will aggravate one symptom, is liable to aggravate the entire being. That may be wrong in some cases, but in most cases it is right. There may be a confusion sometimes as, for example, Dr. Farrington said, the aggravation by heat, let us say, of the headache, but you will find that the whole man, the whole individual, may be aggravated by heat too. However, if you find that the entire man as a unit is aggravated by heat, he feels worse in general, but his headache is better, then he is aggravated by heat.
DR. FARRINGTON: I am not talking about particular symptoms.
DR. KAPLOWE: I dont know whether I made the last point clear, but I should say that if the entire man as a unit is made worse by heat but his headache is not, or lets say it is ameliorated by cold, I would consider the effect of the modality on the whole man.
Some day, Dr. Hayes, I will come up and learn how to use Boger. I would like to do that.
DR. HAYES: It seems that everybody here seems to feel the need of using a repertory, and each one seems to have a favourite. There are about forty points that came up that I would like to discuss. It may be worse than repertorizing a case to try to remember them and go through them. I cant do it.
I heard a couple of words used here twice that I dont like to hear applied to a prescriber, and they are the words “intuitive” or “intuition”. It seems to smack of something clairvoyant, and I dont think there is anything of that sort in the case of prescribing without a repertory and getting the right remedy. If we accept the word “intuition”, though, as being a quality, I would say that it is simply the knack of observing, of forming a judgment on small evidence and forming it correctly and consciously. Some people might arrive at that conclusion unconsciously, but that would seem to be because they did not observe the processes of their own minds, so I think we might well study ourselves and then we wont be so enthusiastic, perhaps.
Born in Torrington, Litchfield, Connecticut, USA on 20 Oct 1871 to Royal Edmund Hayes and Harriet E Merriman. He had at least 4 sons and 1 daughter with Miriam Martha Phillips. He lived in Torrington, Litchfield, Connecticut, United States in 1880. He died on 20 July 1952, in Waterbury, New Haven, Connecticut, United States, at the age of 80, and was buried in Waterbury, New Haven, Connecticut, United States.