DR. WHITMONT: He has something on the nose and something on the foot. Would you not consider that “something” as a concomitant?.
DR. GRIMMER: The associated symptoms.
DR. SUTHERLAND: The concomitants are more or less associated symptoms, but sometimes it would be that you would consider aggravations as concomitants, and while you would still have a listing under the section “aggravation and amelioration,” you would save some of those to go under the concomitant. It depends a little on a little experience with the use of the repertory. You can’t get it all at a session like this. There are a lot of angles I have left out because if you are going to discuss Boenninghausen’s Repertory, you can sit down and discuss it for years on end, as you can with Kent.
DR. ROBERT H. FARLEY (Philadelphia, Pa.): How many remedies does Boenninghausen consider?.
DR. SUTHERLAND: Three hundred forty-two.
DR. FARLEY: How many does Kent have?.
DR. SUTHERLAND: About six hundred and Kent, true enough, considers remedies which are very useful and that you would never arrive at by Boenninghausen’s method. That is one of the failings, but it is not a failing in the method; it is a failing in the compilation. I think it was Dr. Roberts’ purpose, had he continued to be in health, to enlarge the number of remedies compiled under Boenninghausen.
DR. WHITMONT: In Kent only, polychrests are completely carried through. If you take a case on generals, you usually end up with a polychrest.
DR. FARLEY: That has also been my experience. That is one of the reasons why sometimes your most carefully worked out remedy fails to produce results.
DR. SUTHERLAND: That is correct.
DR. FARLEY: That has been recognized in homoeopathy for many years, ever since there has been homoeopathy.
H.C. Allen used to teach the use of nosodes, and where the best homoeopathic remedy fails to produce your result, why shouldn’t it be just possibly that of all the sickness-causing substances in the world, those that are going to cure this particular patient have not yet been investigated? We haven’t anywhere nearly proved all the things that can cause sickness. Perhaps it is one we have not investigated or have incompletely investigated, so you can’t expect perfection from any method that we use.
DR. SUTHERLAND: I think that is very true, and that is one reason why provings need to be continued, because, as you say, we meet cases where there has been no proved remedy to meet that particular disease state in that particular patient. There isn’t a remedy which we know anything about which would suit that patient.
I had an interesting case recently, an asthmatic, to use a diagnostic term, who had suffered a number of years and had some help from homoeopathic prescribing. the repertorial analysis with boenninghausen’s method brought out Sulphur as the leader, and Arsenic as one of the others, and two or three others which I cannot recall at the moment. I had considered Kali carb. because he had some definite indications for that remedy, among which was a marked three or four or five a.m. aggravation, Kali carb. did not come through.
We used 34 rubrics and of the 34 Kali carb. lacked at least seven or more, which makes it rather low grade, but he had taken Kali carb. on his own and had obtained some benefit. I sent a blood specimen to Dr. Grimmer to see if we could write a little more accurate prescription through a method he sometimes uses, and I think the remedy that came through was Alumina silicata. Now, you would never reach that by Kent or Boenninghausen, Kali carb. came through fairly closely.
DR. GRIMMER: It was the second remedy over the blood, Dr. Sutherland.
DR. SUTHERLAND: Dr. Roberts called that a “near similar,” and I was going to give him Kali carb.
DR. HARVEY FARRINGTON (Chicago, Ill.): Boenninghausen’s Repertory, I think is useful where you have only a few common symptoms and not many peculiar symptoms, or those that are really characteristic. For instance, if you have a man with lumbago, worse from cold, worse lying down,and by observing the rate of value, one, two, three, four, you will arrive at a few remedies and you can add them up as an ordinary problem in arithmetic.
Now, it is not the ideal way to prescribe for a case, I will admit, and you not get your similimum by adding them up, adding their rates of value, but the idea is this: to confine yourself as far as possible to a few remedies,to arrive at a few remedies to be studied, and then you can go to your Materia Medica and look at the remedies and perhaps get hints as to some further questioning of the patient that will bring out a concomitant or a modality, or something which he has forgotten to give you.
DR. WILLIAM P. MOWRY (Detroit, Mich.): After you got the report from Grimmer, did you refer to the Materia Medica and did those symptoms fit in with the selection of Alumina silicata?
DR. SUTHERLAND: No, because I got it from him when he arrived at the convention.
DR. GRIMMER: I referred to Kent’s New Remedies, and it had essentially the symptoms that the doctor brought out.
DR. SUTHERLAND: I will read it up when I get home. It was interesting to me.
DR. GRIMMER: I never depend on the blood analysis along. The history and symptoms are the main study. The blood is only confirmatory, because the blood gives the polarity and our remedies have been classified in four groups, and when you get the polarity, as with the repertory, you can eliminate, and the right remedy will be in the polarity, group, and our homoeopathy is just as useful and more useful.
DR. RAY W. SPALDING (Boston, Mass): The paper is not really an attempt to sell the Boenninghausen method or as an analysis of various repertories. The title is “Do you Repertorize?” and my answer would be,”Yes”.
Now, it doesnt matter what repertory you use. I happen to be Favorable to Kent because to me it is a little easier, but I never prescribe for a case that I don’t refer to a repertory. You may come down to a group for study, but there is one signal advantage in using the repertory, and that is to increase your knowledge of Materia Medica. You can’t do this paper and see the aggravation “lying,” without wondering if you knew that Lycopodium in the analysis, and that is one reason why I certainly use the repertory.
DR. WILBUR K. BOND (Greensfork, Ind.): A great many times in repertorizing a difficult case, Kent does not have enough figures for evaluation of the remedies and your top four or five come out pretty much as a tie. Then I take that case to Boenninghausen, which has the advantage of greater evaluations, of 5,4,3,2, and 1, and I believe there are cases when these top four read about the same in the Materia Medica. It is almost impossible to decide in the Materia Medica but through Boenninghausen coming out by a careful high numerical figure, one usually can almost depend on the high numerical value of Boenninghausen as being the remedy.
DR. SUTHERLAND (closing): Usually the essayist just sits quietly absorbing all that is said in discussion and then lets loose with a final blast, but I am not going to do that. I have been
blasting since I got on the platform.
I thanks those who have participated in the discussion because I think a paper is of absolutely no worth unless it elicits questions or discussions, or brings out additional points.
Allan D. Sutherland was born in Northfield, Vermont in 1897, delivered by the local homeopathic physician. The son of a Canadian Episcopalian minister, his father had arrived there to lead the local parish five years earlier and met his mother, who was the daughter of the president of the University of Norwich. Four years after Allan’s birth, ministerial work lead the family first to North Carolina and then to Connecticut a few years afterward.
Starting in 1920, Sutherland began his premedical studies and a year later, he began his medical education at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia.
Sutherland graduated in 1925 and went on to intern at both Children’s Homeopathic Hospital and St. Luke’s Homeopathic Hospital. He then was appointed the chief resident at Children’s. With the conclusion of his residency and 2 years of clinical experience under his belt, Sutherland opened his own practice in Philadelphia while retaining a position at Children’s in the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department.
In 1928, Sutherland decided to set up practice in Brattleboro.