Introduction to Homeopathic Repertories

To a layperson large, thick directory-like book adorning every homeopath's shelf is the Repertory. Every person has his own first experience with this book. I remember having my first introduction with it when I was a 2^nd year student, pursuing my Grads in Homeopathy. Our curriculum then, introduced the subject of Repertory in Final year, so I was unknown to the existence of any such book. I was preparing for my Medicinal Therapeutics and had to put in a lot of effort finding which medicine could cover the disease picture. I went to the local homeopathic book store and came across a heavy directory sort book; and whoa! It had alphabetic arrangement of disease along with medicines indicated in those conditions. I was very happy over my discovery and walked home with pride carrying the large packet. It was only later owing to the benevolence of my teachers that I learned that it was not a discovery but uncovering of the facts.

Frederika Gladwin, who was one of those who worked with Kent on the preparation of his Repertory recounted her first experience with a Repertory. She says: "Before me was the symptom, 'disposition to commit suicide by drowning.' Among the words following were 'Ant' and 'Bell'. They were words I knew but I was solely puzzled to know what an ant and a bell had to do with drowning. A little further on I recognized 'Hell' and 'Puls' but they had left off the 'e' in the spelling of 'pulse'. I wondered, but had a vague idea that the pulse and hell might be some relation to 'wanting to drown oneself'. I tried to read more but found it no use. It was just words and words; most of them meaningless, so I gave up."

Need of 'Directory of Symptoms'

When homeopathic practice was in its infancy, we had quite a few remedies. So learning their symptoms and remembering all their cross references and relations was not unmanageable.  As our assemblage grew it became practically impossible to remember all the facts about them. The need to meet the demands of our augmenting resources led to the birth of Repertory. 

Hahnemann alone, and later with the help of his students attempted to construct such a system which could facilitate this task. But no one could come up with a universal solution, every work had some shortcomings and lacunae. The task of putting together the first repertory that could be used in practice fell to Clemens Maria Franz von Boenninghausen, a lawyer who became interested in homeopathy through his own cure by the system. Hahnemann supported and applauded his work.

Within a few years of the publication of Boenninghausen's Repertory in 1832 it became obvious that this new tool was beginning to create problems. In 1834, Hahnemann wrote to Boenninghausen, "Even if the homeopathician perceive that the Repertory is insufficient for finding the best remedy for every case of disease, nevertheless, they calm down when they have such an overview in their hands, and even believe with some probability to be able to dispense with sources [materia medica], and they don't buy them and use them."

The concern that people were using the Repertory as a shortcut to find the remedy, without bothering to look further in the Materia medica to more finely differentiated remedies. In the introduction to his manual, Jahr cautions against using the Repertory mechanically.

Repertory is just a tool, it is the mind which uses it that performs the exercise. The logic of Repertories, their usage, their scope should be imbibed before working with them. So here, we discuss with you the salient features of the common Repertories and their utility:

As Dr. Green said, "Repertories are generally a repetition of some previous one, or the result of combining two". They are compilations; rubrics have been copied from one another. This is very true in the cases of Repertories; at present we have hundreds of repertories but we can find common rubrics in all of them. So it is not the number that counts but the value. We should just understand the need and utility of each of them so that we could use them at the right time.

Buried in the pile of repertories are treasures that we have forgotten about.