To me the Repertory has always pointed not to the ACCURATE drug, but to the most similar remedy, and that usually means the most similar remedy, and that usually means the most similar to the symptoms at hand, whether they truly relate to the drug’s true pathogenetic group or not. I find very few of the “evaluate” symptoms so evaluated as to conform to each drug’s true pathogenesis, many of whose symptoms appear in insignificant type.
With the grand characteristic of each drug, and its essential primary pathogenetic group, which together form the SYMPTOM TOTALITY of that drug, a work of that kind, together with a copy of Kent’s Repertory, or Knerr’s would be worth more to me
than all the materia medica and repertories, card or otherwise, combined. For no drug will or possibly can remove a pathogenesis unless it can directly produce a counterpart.
DR. DAYTON T. PULFORD: My ideas as to the value of repertories are still in a nebulous state, I must admit. At Boston I had drills in Kent’s by a reputed master of the repertory, the late Dr. Gladwin. We were taught to read between the limbs. I must confess that I have often found no lines to read between. Kent’s has been the cause of more profanity in my life than any other book.
A quite logical scheme is badly balled up by spreading things all through it which should be in more logical places. Fine distinctions are not drawn in places where they are needed in spite of the voluminous going from Generals to Particulars. Then the old problem of Concomitants which were a bogey man for Kent. Just to read some of his jugglings, e.g. writer’s cramp, in his Lesser Writings, is enough to show that no young man who can ill afford at least a clerk, let alone a secretary, could make more than a dollar a day.
Back of the repertory lies the inability at times to get the nature of the case and to know what to pick out if we have got it. Somewhere in the patient’s condition lies a group of symptoms, a few in number, that form the basis of the rest of his story. If we can find these the others may be disregarded. Here is where what might be called a physiological diagnosis would be of use, might also add for an alternative a mental or psychological diagnosis. It would give us the heart of the whole situation.
Sleeplessness from indigestion might call for a different group of remedies than sleeplessness from a heart condition. This together with the most important part, the patient, would clinch the remedy. The patient with a bad heart, preceded by a rheumatic trouble, which in turn was preceded by quinsy, would need our attention to the original trouble. One with pain in the knee might need us to attend to the hip. The maze is endless. Even a sinner may note sin in a church, and even a remedy may be arrived at in unorthodox fashion.
The Therapeutic Pocket Book is to my mind the most reliable and the nearest approach to a mathematical repertory that we have. Were I to pick the triumvirate of homoeopathy I would choose Hahnemann, Boenninghausen and Hering. They did the most fundamental and progressive work in homoeopathy of all. We can only progress upon their firm foundation.
Dr. Macfarlan hit the nail on the head when he spoke of Kent as a compiler. We have had so much compiling and deleting that homoeopathy has become much like the Christian religion, both unrecognizable to their founders We must keep Hahnemann as our goal and not attempt to usurp his place until we can qualify to do so.
DR. HARVEY FARRINGTON: Success in using Boenninghausen, Boger Lippe, Kent or the card repertories depends almost as much upon familiarity with the place and phraseology of the certain repertory, as it does in the ability to select proper symptoms for the schema. Boenninghausen (and Boger’s modifications of it) are to this day without doubt the best for obscure cases of those with paucity of symptoms. Pompe sticks to Kent; so do I for the most part. But this is reality because I grew up with Kent and never had expert advice in the use of Boenninghausen. It must be
admitted that Boenninghausen contains some indications which are “particular” according to Kent’s rating. But Boenninghausen was meticulous in his recording of remedies and their rating But Boenninghausen was meticulous in his recording of remedies and their rating as to degrees of importance and where his experience was limited he put over the remedy in small or ordinary type leaving it to others to raise their value. So there are doubtless many remedies in the low rating which should be marked in higher degree, and who knows? Many of Boger’s indications which Kent would consider “particular” may prove to be “general” characteristics.
DR. JOHN HUTCHINSON: In case I my attention is arrested by the modality introducing it. I am so lazy minded that whenever such a thing as a modality cries out in the wilderness I pin all my attention to it and fry out of it all. the fat possible. But Dr. Hayes is thorough and marshals his whole army to get the fat. Isn’t that what makes our Council interesting? We don’t all travel on the same highway, but “All roads lead to Rome”.
In case I, I should, or rather, would have chosen another one of the remedies shown in the picture, and probably failed and so zig-zagged along to the similimum if ever.
No. III is a literary fortress. If any of us can select either Socrates or Plato without choosing both he is some analyst.
I sometimes wonder what Dr. Hayes is-a philosopher, a materia-medicist, an artist, a wizard, or an all-round Hahnemann, and let it go at that. His mind seems equal to the dissection of any problem, and not only its dissection but its distinguished solution. This is not intended to be personal at all.
It is only to show that rugged individualism is the thing, and we are most lucky whenever our members-or any one of them- will exhibit it so forcefully that he makes out his case, wins his point, and so convinces and inspires us with the logic of his results.
I use the repertory in a very imperfect and desultory way. With an intricate case I may go to it simply to refresh my memory as to the names of remedies. Those names that are illuminating I take to the materia medica and read their text. It seems impossible for me to introduce into the performance any branch of mathematics.
DR. MAURICE TURNER:I’ve brought myself up on Boenninghausen, and had to dig out the concordances, i.e., the use of them, and altogether have had more satisfaction from the Therapeutic Pocket Book than from any other repertory.
I like the paper of the kind Dr. Hayes has given us and thank him.
DR. HAYES: Ha! Ha! Ha! I did not expect to hook out such a bagful of professional skeletons, confessions and sundry complexes as have come to the surface here. Nevertheless, I know that they do not exist without good reason. The discussors may be depended on for that. The discussion has such good points that it is almost an impertinence to meddle with them but I will
permit myself to call out a few of them.
Dr. Farrington remarks that in the older days of the Pocket Book practice the prescribers had to be good materia medica students. I like the way he said that. He did not say that they knew a lot of materia medica nor what they carried around a caput full of keynotes. There is a difference! Which the reader may apprehend without further hint of mine.
On second thought, though, I will point out that the remarks of Dr. A. Pulford do imply, if not intentionally at least by the genius of his motive, this same difference; and in favor of remedy genius of his motive, this same difference; and in favor of remedy genius rather than symptomatic chatter. I wish that the same Dr. Pulford might present a diversified series of successful cures demonstrating his mental processes from the “taking of the case” to the final decision. I do not mean that he should intend to demonstrate any theory of his, not at all, but just his own natural processes. Can he do that?.
Wise is Dr. T. Puldford! “Back of the repertory lies the inability at times to get the nature of the case and know what to pick out-.” “Some-where in the patient’s condition lies a group of symptoms, few in number, that form the basis of the rest of his his story.” Would that this entire paragraph might be posted on the front door of every homoeopathic college and tattoed on the breast of every student, to be kept washed and shaved, of course.
Dr. Turner is excused from more discussion especially as I remember with interest his demonstration of the use of Boenninghausen which were published several years ago and which were exceedingly instructive.
I note Drs. Leonard, Stevens and Farrington’s remarks as to the necessity that every rubric selected for repertory calculation shall be valid. I approve of Dr. Leonard writing “provided” in italics. Dr. Stevens speaks of “seeing the picture of the remedy in the patient.” In my opinion nothing in the art of prescribing can equal that.
I think that Dr. Hutchinson could give a more excellent reason for not “repertorizing,” a reason that it would be well for students and teachers to consider. He is an investigator of materia medica highways and byways and topography too, and has an uncanny insight into sick human nature.
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.