Name of Book: A Repertory to the Materia Medica. by Edward William Berridge.M.D.

Year of Publication: 1873- April

No of pages: 317

No of Drugs Represented: 1171

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Edward William Berridge. M.D was one of the founders of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was a British homeopath and adherent of high potency prescribing. He was a mentor to Thomas Skinner.

• Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the University of London
• Doctor of Medicine from the Homoeopathic College of Pennsylvania.
• Formerly Resident Medical Officer to the Liverpool Homoeopathic Dispensary

He Is also the author of Index to cases of poisoning in the allopathic journals, Pathogenetic record.

His contributions can be found in American Journal of Homoeopathic Materia Medica, North American Journal of Homoeopathy, Hahnemannian Monthly, Hering's Complete Materia Medica, Monthly Homoeopathic review , Gregg's Homoeopathic Quarterly and British Journal of Homoeopathy etc.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Source:

• The main basis of this repertory is C. Hering's Materia Medica.
• Added some additional symptoms from later provings and clinical symptoms from his own experience.
• Symptoms from cases of poisoning, reported in the Allopathic Journals, which were later compiled as "Pathogenetic Record," published as an appendix to the British Journal of Homoeopathy.

Philosophy of the book:  Berridge repertory is unique in its utilization of Complete symptom in Boenninghausen's style along with reliable data from provings. Dr. Berridge gave importance to the clinical symptoms apart from the symptoms obtained from the provings. He felt that it is often difficult or impossible to decide from the proving alone what symptoms are really connected with each other; whereas, if a group of symptoms is cured homoeopathically, there can be no doubt of the necessary connection of its constituents elements. 

According to Dr. Berridge, if we wish to obtain maximum benefit from Homoeopathy , we can only do so by faithfully following the three great rules of the Master.

1. Careful selection of Similimum
2. Single remedy
3. Minimum dose

Plan and Construction

In this repertory the author has divided each chapter into two sections:.

1. The symptoms & functions
2. Their conditions (including concomitants)

Section I

Section I is further divided in to 5 sections

1. Functional symptoms
2. Anatomical regions
3. General character, sequence and direction
4. Right side
5. Left side

a) Functional Symptoms:

This included symptoms related to the fuctions of organ or system e.g regarding Vision: Objects false appearance of (colors, far too, distorted, moving, multiplied, part visible), Objects, imaginary, Photomania , Photophobia, Sight dazzled, Sight impaired (Blindness, Dimness).

b) Anatomical Regions

e.g under eye we have

• Eyeball
• Sclerotic
• Cornea
• Chambers of eyes
• Iris
• Lens
• Fundus
• OrbitOrbital integuments
• Eyebrows
• Eyelids
• Puncta lachrymalis
• Canthi
• Carencula lachrymalis
• Lachymal gland
• Lachrymal bones
• Lachrymal sacs

c) General character, sequence and direction

• Periodical
• Gradual increase and decrease
• Changing character or places
• Within-outwards
• Without - inwards
• Directions
• Alternate with other organs/Body

d. Right side-

Gen Drugs affecting Right eye

• Functions
• Anatomical regions

e. Left Side-

Gen Drugs affecting Left eye

• Functions
• Anatomical regions

Section - II : Their conditions (including concomitants)

It is further divided into 2 subsections:

• II A - aggravations
• II B - Ameliorations

All the symptoms in these subsections are arranged alphabetically, excepting the peculiar symptoms ,which not falling under any general heading are placed last All symptoms of a nearly identical meaning are placed under the same rubric, according to the table of synonym. The conditions including the concomitant are arranged in 22 groups as follows:

1. Time,
2. Situation and external influences,
3. Posture,
4. Touch,
5. Motion
6. Head (including mental symptoms),
7. Eyes.
8. Ears,
9. Nose,
10. Face and front of neck,
11. Teeth,
12. Mouth and throat,
13. Abdomen (including stomach, anus and all functional symptoms there of,
14. Urinary organs,
15. Sexual organs
16. Chest and larynx,
17. Back and nape of neck,
18. Arms,
19. Legs,
20. Sleep,
21. Fever (chills, heat, sweat),
22. Generalities (including skin, Bones, convulsions, other drugs etc.)

Gradations used in the Repertory:

1. Italic capitals
2. Plain capitals
3. Italics
4. Roman letters
5. Roman (bracketed) - doubtful symptoms

The above typography is used mainly in relation to the rubrics and not to indicate the marks of medicines. The medicines are written either in roman or in roman parenthesis in the repertory part.

Abbreviations used in the book

With regard to the abbreviations of the names of the medicines, the author has adopted an uniform and scientific method of cyphering, as it is quite time that such absurd names as Hepar Sulphuris, Alcohol Sulphuris and c, be discarded  for more scientific nomenclature.

• The cyphers of the elements and simple haloid salts are the same as their chemical symbols.  
• The - ate salts are cyphered by adding - a
• The - ite salts by adding - i to the cyphers of the corresponding haloid salt
• The - ic acids are cyphered by adding - x
• The - ous acids adding - ix
• The hydracids by adding - hx to the cypher of the element or compound radical from which they are formed.

e.g Na.= Sodium, Na-s = Sulphide of sodium, Na-sa = Sulphate of sodium, Na-si = Sulphite of sodium, S. = Sulphur , S-x. = Sulphuric acid, S-ix = Sulphurous acid, S-hx = Sulphydric acid

In the medicines derived from the Animal and Vegetable kingdoms, each genus is invariably expressed by a different cypher. For Ex. rs - rhus toxicodendron , rs-g - rhus glabrum , rs-r  -rhus radicans , trg.- trigonocephalus lachesis , trg-a - trigonocephalus atrox , trg-c - trigonocephalus contortix

SCOPE

• Being a Regional repertories they can be used in the study of Homoeopathic Therapeutics as well as MateriaMedica.
• They help to repertorize the following type of cases

              a) Cases lacking mental generals and physical generals but rich with                                         common symptoms

              b) Cases with clinical diagnosis

              c) Short cases with a few symptoms

• They are used as quick reference books at the bed side.
• Regional repertories contain some rubrics, which are not found in other general repertories, therefore they can become a good companion in study of such rubrics.
• Regional repertories help us to find the most appropriate palliative medicines in incurable cases.

LIMITATIONS

• Being a regional repertory its use is limited to particular type of cases. They are mainly used for reference work and not for a complete repertorisation
• Grading of drugs has not been done
• Number of drugs is less
• Abbreviations used are different from the commonly using repertories.

CASE

The author says that whenever you are treating a case of eye disorder the symptoms should be arranged in L,S,M,C form which is Boenninghausen's style.

Case Workout

Aug 9, 1871. At 2 pm a child put his finger into his mother's left eye, scratching the upper part of eye ball; smarting in the eye followed with heat, redness and hot lachrymation followed; "cannot open the eye because of pain". Cold water application relieves the pain and watering; the light of day increasesthe watering.

Diagnosis of Remedy

As the symptoms arose from a mechanical cause, the author did not consider the locality (left eye) as a characteristic of the case.

Page 290:

Relief from Cold-Heat: Al-o, Amm-cl (thu).

Relief from Cold-Lachrymation: Al-o.

Relief from Cold-Smarting: Al-o, N-x.

Page 293:

Relief from Washing-Heat: Al-o, Amm-cl, asr, k-na (thu).

Relief from Washing-Lachrymation: Al-o,Asr. Mg-ca.

Relief from Washing-Smarting: Al-o, Na-ca

Page 175:

Worse from Natural Light-Lachrymation: Al-o, Bry, dig, Dl-s, Dt, Eug.Grp, K-bicra, Kre, Lyc, Mg-cl, Qu-sa, S-x. (Str-i), Vr-s, Zn.

Thus Alumina alone corresponds to all these symptoms and it was found to also have Redness of eyes (page 16), Difficulty opening if eyelids (page 47), and Hot Lachrymation (page 24). Accordingly, at 7 pm the symptoms having lasted five hours, I gave a single dose of Alumina CM. in fifteen minutes all the symptoms were gone, except a little feeling of stiffness.