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DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1792176
Technical Note

The New World Veterinary Repertory

Richard H. Pitcairn
1   Pitcairn Institute of Veterinary Homeopathy, Sedona, Arizona, United States
,
Wendy Jensen
2   Pitcairn Institute of Veterinary Homeopathy, Bow, New Hampshire, United States
› Author Affiliations

The Development of the Repertory

As many remedies were studied, even in Hahnemann's time it was evident there needed to be a way to organize the information. Few people could keep in memory all the detail that was accumulating. The repertory was invented as an organizational tool. The flow of information then was like this: provings and poisonings → materia medica → repertory. You can see that by the time the information appeared in the repertory, it had gone through three translations:

  • Perception/interpretation of the prover's symptoms as reported to the observer.

  • Organization of symptom information into sentences in the materia medica.

  • Fragmentation of materia medica into separate rubrics of a repertory.

Here is an example of how that is done, picking a proving at random, for Aconitum.

“19. Dr. Wurstl, aet. 39, sanguine temperament, suffered in former years frequently from articular rheumatism, toothache, and on the slightest chill diarrhoea, but has been quite well latterly. 22nd February, eight AM, 6 drops of tinct. Immediately slight scraping in throat, for 5 minutes, nothing else. 23rd, nine AM, 12 drops. Somewhat more severe but transient scraping in throat. About 11 AM suddenly giddy when walking, thereafter slight throbbing in frontal region towards both eyes, for some minutes. Otherwise well, as he was also the next 2 days, when he took 12 and 15 drops. 6th March, 8:30 AM, 15 drops. All day a slight coolness, which about six PM passed into chilliness, often recurring in course of evening; at same time rumbling in belly and itching in rectum compelling scratching. Next day no medicine; symptoms continued. 8th, nine AM, 20 drops; forenoon, frequent vertigo; noon, slight chilliness (lasting till evening); afternoon, a soft stool; night, frequent waking, without dreams. The chilly feeling, the loose bowels, and tickling in anus lasted 3 days; in addition, three vesicles came on tip of tongue, which burnt for 4 days. 12th, eight AM, 30 drops. After 2 hours great confusion, throbbing and vertigo in head. After midday soup heat in head for 1/2 hours. After noon, again chilly; evening both knees are icy cold, with occasional transient stitches in them; night, frequent waking, but he soon goes to sleep again.”[1]

Let's look at the information in this part of the proving:

“…forenoon, frequent vertigo; noon, slight chilliness (lasting till evening); afternoon, a soft stool; night, frequent waking, without dreams. The chilly feeling, the loose bowels, and tickling in anus lasted 3 days; in addition, three vesicles came on tip of tongue, which burnt for 4 days.”

We can see that there are a number of symptoms that occur together and it is obvious that a direct matching of proving report to a (new) patient would be most accurate if that patient communicated the same pattern that was very much like this report—the vertigo, chilliness, soft stool, frequent waking, ticking in the anus, and vesicles on the tip of the tongue. So, if we saw a patient with all or most of this symptom complex, we would know that Aconitum was the similar remedy.

It becomes immediately obvious that this is difficult to keep in memory, or even keep in this form in a materia medica or repertory (though some of the older ones did try to do that as, e.g., that of Jahr or Knerr) especially considering this is just one fragment of many pages of provings from several people. The answer to this practical challenge is the repertory. Information is extracted and grouped for easy access, but it is important to know that the pattern is broken up and the various parts are put in different places, scattered throughout the repertory.

In finding the remedy for the patient, the reverse is done—we find the separate parts of this pattern and reassemble them for the patient at hand. You can see that the accuracy of this reassembly is critical.

As an example of how the information is entered, or not entered, let us take the selected phrase above and see where we can find it in Kent's Repertory.

Proving symptom

Repertory rubric

Comments

Forenoon, vertigo

Vertigo; FORENOON (25): acon., agar., ambr., atro., bry., calc., camph., etc.

Aconitum present

Frequent vertigo

Vertigo; VERTIGO (277): abies-c., abies-n., absin., acet-ac., Acon., act-sp., etc.

Aconitum present in the general rubric for “vertigo” but there is no rubric for “frequent” or any similar words

Noon, slight chilliness lasting to evening

Chill; CHILLINESS (128): abrot., acon., aesc., aeth., agar., alum., am-c., am-m., etc.

Aconitum present in “chilliness” but there is no rubric for “slight” or for starting at noon and extending to evening

Soft stool in afternoon

Stool; SOFT (203): acon., aesc., aeth., agar., agn., ail., all-c., all-s., aloe, etc.

Aconitum present for “soft stool” but no rubric for “soft in afternoon”

Soft stool in afternoon

Rectum; URGING, desire (173): abrot., acon., Aesc., aeth., Agar., all-c., aloe, alum., alumn., anac., apis, arg., arg-n., arn., ars., etc.

A similar rubric that may apply is urging for stool and Aconitum is in that rubric, but there is no subrubric for “in afternoon”

Frequent waking without dreams

Sleep; WAKING; frequent (156): acon., aeth., agar., agn., all-s., Alum., am-c., etc.

Aconitum found in “frequent waking” but there is no rubric for “waking without dreams”

Tickling in anus (another prover's description had it as “itching in anus lasting all day”)

Rectum; ITCHING (153): acon., Aesc., Agar., agn., all-c., Aloe, alum., alumn., etc.

Aconitum present in “rectum itching” but there is no rubric for “anus, tickling” and Kent cross-references from the word “tickling” to this rubric

Vesicles on tip of tongue with burning

Mouth; VESICLES; Tongue (73): acon., Am-c., am-m., ant-c., Apis, arg., Ars., etc.

Aconitum in “tongue vesicles” but the rubric for “vesicles tip of tongue” does not include Aconitum

Vesicles on tip of tongue with burning

Mouth; PAIN; burning; Tongue; tip (53): acon., agar., am-c., am-m., arg., etc.

Aconitum present for “burning tip of tongue” but there is no rubric for “vesicles, burning, tip of tongue”

So, we can see that the proving symptoms are broken up and parts of the entire symptom are put in various sections of the repertory. Also, some of the detail that makes the proving most defined simply is not found there when we look for it—it was left behind. From this perusal of what has been included and what was left out, we can see that there was a decision by Kent as to what is important to the practitioner, what would be useful.

Let us look at this from another angle. In this next table, we list the symptom fragments that we are considering in the table above and see if we can find them in a number of representative repertories. If “yes,” then there is such a rubric and Aconitum is found in it. If “—,” then either there is no such rubric or there is a rubric but Aconitum is not present in it.

Symptom

Kent

Boenninghausen (Boger edit)

Synthesis Edition 7

Complete 2009

Vertigo, forenoon

Yes

Yes

Yes

Vertigo, frequent

Vertigo, paroxysmal

Chilliness, noon

Chilliness, slight

Stools, soft, afternoon

Stool, urging, afternoon

Waking, frequent

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Waking, not from dreams

Anus, tickling

Anus, itching

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Anus, itching all day

Tongue vesicles with burning

Yes

Yes

Vesicles, at tip of tongue

Yes

Vesicles, at tip of tongue, burning

Tongue, burning

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Tongue, burning, tip

Yes

Yes

Yes

We can see at a glance that only a minority of the information is included. This including only part of the information is practical—if every piece of information were included, we could not lift the book or would be lost in the computer file—just too much there and it loses its purpose of easy symptom access. Nonetheless, if we were trying to find this remedy for a patient, and assuming that the patient was showing the exact concatenation as we are working with here, it would be difficult to clearly define Aconitum as the match.

Here is how it would look like an analysis graph with what we have available to us in the Kent repertory. We see that Aconitum is in this analysis but certainly not prominent.

Note

This article reproduces content originally published in ‘New World Veterinary Repertory’ by Richard h. Pitcairn & Wendy Jensen. Permission granted by Narayana Publishers, Germany.




Publication History

Article published online:
29 November 2024

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  • References

  • 1 Hughes R, Drake JP. A Cyclopedia of Drug Pathogenesy. Vol. I. The date of the proving would seem to be 1843: 95
  • 2 The dictionary meaning is “naturally accompanying or associated.”
  • 3 Nash EB. Expanded Work of Nash. New Delhi: B. Jain Publishers; 1995: 572