REPERTORISING - case evaluation in homeopathy

A homeopathic repertory is a systematic listing of symptoms with the remedies, either in book or electronic form.

Repertorising is the skill of finding rubrics that accurately encapsulate the individual symptomology expressed by the patient, in the repertory.

To that end the case must first be well taken, if you haven't got the necessary information in the first place you could repertorise a badly taken case until you are blue in the face, and to no avail. However when you do have the required information, repertorising enables you to rapidly narrow down the choice of remedies from several thousand to just a handful. It is then much easier to compare this small selection in the Matera Medica to decide which is homeopathic.

Dr J Kishore wrote that 'the Homeopathic Matera Medica is a very fascinating and yet an exasperating subject. ....that there is no royal road to to a perfect understanding of Matera Medica. It is at its worst a tedious drudgery. One can realise its vast extent by reading 138 printed pages on (remedy) Sulphur in the Encyclopaedia or 90 pages on (remedy) Lachesis in Herings Guiding Symptoms. It requires tremendous study, experience and insight to see some order in the maze of such a collection of symptoms.'

To help with this problem James Tyler Kent MD., and his student Dr Tyler, taught homeopathic Matera Medica by portraying remedies as 'remedy pictures', 'symptom picture' or 'drug pictures'. It was Kent who also provided us with the 'repertory'; a systematic listing of symptoms with the remedies. Thus the Organon (philosophy), the Matera Medica and Repertory became the corner stones of homeopathic study. It is the repertory that helps us find a path through the maze of symptoms described by Dr Kishore above.

Although there are several different repertories, it is still Kent's that is best known and his repertory is laid out in a hierarchy that is maintained even today in the best known modern repertories. The main alternative to Kent's way of setting out a repertory is those set out alphabetically, Phatak's, Allen's, or Murphy's repertories for example. Others authors like Eizayaga, Clarke, set out their repertories with their own particular preference of headings, & Boericke's is known for its useful chapters on aggravation and amelioration. The most modern at the time of writing is Roger Zanvoort's Repertorium Universale.

The most common method of repertorisation is Totality (MGP combined) or variations on that theme, (although there are other methods). As the process of repertorisation can be laborious, homeopaths are always looking for ways to speed it up and computers certainly help with this when it comes to cross-referencing hundreds of remedies. One speedy method which can be done without a computer is the Elimination method. This simply involves subtracting remedies in essential rubrics, but it has a very high probability of error and so requires considerable expertise to work..

Two hundred years ago at the outset of homeopathic practice there were relatively few remedies and their attributes were known off by heart, but as their number has increased over the years into the thousands only those with the most encylopaedic memories could efficiently retain that much information. It is fortunate then that computer repertories are now available to us mere mortals with modest memories.

Finding the remedy is a skill acquired through practice. A good knowledge of Matera Medica is half the battle, the other half is won through careful casetaking and familiarity with the repertory. Whichever repertory is used, and whichever the method of repertorising, the same symptoms have the same remedies, it's just different ways of accessing the same information

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