The Boenninghausen Repertory - Therapeutic Pocketbook Method - Second Edition (G. Dimitriadis, Editor)

Recensie

This book review is reprinted from Volume 7, 2001 Edition of The American Homeopath with permission from The American Homeopath.

Reviewed by Julian Winston

The first homeopathic repertory ever printed was the Repertory of Anti-Psoric Medicines by Boenninghausen in 1832. Now, it is fitting that the first repertory to be printed in this new millennium is again by Boenninghausen.

The Boenninghausen Therapeutic Pocket Book was first printed in 1846, and was the end result of Boenninghausen's work. It has been in print for years. It was translated into English by a number of people - Okie in 1847, Hempel in 1847, T. F. Allen in 1891. In 1935, H. A. Roberts, a devotee of Boenninghausen, wrote a long article about how to use the book which was included in all subsequent printings of the Allen work by Boericke and Tafel. The recent Indian editions are of the same book.

Yet, despite its accessibility as a book, the use of the book had remained fairly inaccessible unless one was fortunate enough to study with an old prescriber who knew how to use it.

The method, as described in the introduction, is not very clearly stated. The last of the Boenninghausen users in the USA was Dr. Allan Sutherland, and when he died in 1980, instruction in the book ceased at the NCH course in Millersville - the training ground for most American homeopaths at the time.

Although Elizabeth Wright-Hubbard wrote a useful piece called "Rubrics in Boenninghausen Not to be Found in Kent" in the August 1956 issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy, those who have tried to use the Pocket Book as they would the Kent Repertory became lost and discouraged.

Part of the problem is that the two books approach casetaking in a very different way. Kent, in his writings, admits that he could not use the Boenninghausen method and it made no sense to him. Yet on the other side, we see that some of the past great prescribers have had similar problems with the Kent book.

Yet, on the other side, we see some of the past great prescribers have had similar problems with the Kent book.

In an article discussing repertories in the Homoeopathic Recorder in October 1932, Cyrus M. Boger says, "I am free to say I have never been able to follow Kent literally at all, but Kent less than Boenninghausen. I had Lee's Repertory long before Kent's was ever published and never could make a great use of it and when I got Kent's I didn't make so much more use of it, at that."

Dr. Alfred Pulford compared repertories: "I bought seven copies of Kent's Repertory and I wouldn't be without it as an index. It is indispensable to us, but I never rely on prescribing on it. We have three repertories, Kent, Boenninghausen, and Knerr. Kent is the most readily available and the least, to me, reliable. Boenninghausen is less available, but more reliable. Knerr is the least of all available and the most reliable. "

And Royal E. S. Hayes, in an obituary of Erastus Case, said of him: "Apparently he used all repertories, using one or another to some reason of his own, not accepting the belief that Kent's swallowed all the others...Of Boenninghausen's, 'I use Kent's every day at my desk, but for hard chronic cases I always go to Boenninghausen.'"

After years of disuse, The Boenninghausen Therapeutic Pocket Book has finally been resurrected. This edition is the work of a group of six homeopaths and has taken more than five years to come to fruition.

Although Allen added a good number of remedies to his translation (and took a few out), the group thought that none of these additions could be confirmed and it was unknown whether Boenninghausen would have added the same remedies in the same places. Therefore, all the Allen additions have been removed from this edition.

The only additions which have been made were gleaned directly from Boenninghausen's later writings and from additions he made to his Repertory as reportedly collected by Carroll Dunham.

In May of 2000, Dr. med Klaus-Henning Gypser published the German Therapeutic Pocketbook, Revised Edition 2000. It is pocket-book in size, beautifully printed and bound, and it adheres to the layout of the previous editions of the work.

In October 2000, the English version, The Boenninghausen Repertory: The Pocket Book Method (TBR), edited by George Dimitriadis was released. This is a major revision of the work. A major change is that the rubrics have been re-translated from the German. There is a 69-page section of endnotes that defines each rubric and how (and why) it was translated as such. This task often required going back to the provings to understand how that particular remedy manifested the symptom described. It is a brilliant 69 pages.

The layout had been changed to make it easier to locate rubrics in the order needed for the taking of the case. The concordances have been completely re-done, replacing those from the 1846 book with those that Boenninghausen published in 1853.

What's there to see? The book is 250 mm (9.75") tall and 150 mm (7") wide. It is but 20 mm (1 ") thick.

The pages have two columns of rubrics. No rubrics are carried over from left to right column or from one page to the next-meaning that all you want to see is right there in one column on one page. This goes against the historical tradition of the book, and gives it a visual look that is very different from the original or the new German edition. It is no longer a "pocket book."

The book then departs again from the traditional ordering of the parts. It is divided into the following sections:

1. SYMPTOMATA REGIONAL: Refers to the LOCATION: Head, trunk, extremities with further breakdown into eyes/vision, ears/hearing, etc.
2. SYMPTOMATA SYSTEMIC: Grouping according to FUNCTION of body systems.
3. SYMPTOMATA GENERAL: Those symptoms that do not relate to one region over another. The MIND section is here.
4. SYMPTOMATA MODALITIES: All factors of aggravation and amelioration are here.
5. CONCORDANCES: Remedy relationships.

Every rubric is numbered and you can look up the number in the endnotes to see how it was translated from German, and anything else that would define its meaning. There are a total of 2695 rubrics.

The editor stresses that he has labeled the sections as "Symptomata" as a reminder that the rubrics within refer only to disordered, abnormal alterations.

The book contains a very good preface explaining the developmental process, a section explaining how to use the book, a translation of Gypser's introduction to the German edition, and a translation of Boenninghausen's original introduction to the 1846 Pocket Book.

The book contains a very good preface explaining the developmental process, a section explaining how to use the book, a translation of Gypser's introduction to the German edition, and a translation of Boenninghausen's original introduction to the 1846 Pocket Book.

The book contains only 135 remedies - 125 that appeared in the original and 10 added based on other Boenninghausen work. Of course, this raises many questions, since remedies like Gelsemium, Phytolacca, Argentum nitricum, and Kali bichromicum do not appear. Is this a failing? Well, yes and no. Both Gypser and Dimitriadis stressed that it is incumbent upon homeopaths to know all their tools. You should understand the "picture" of Gelsemium well enough to recognize it when you see it-as well as all the other remedies that are not in the book. The Boenninghausen Repertory should not be the only tool you use.

When I visited K. H. Gypser in March 2000, I noticed he had the large Boenninghausen by Boger and the Kent Repertory on his desk, as well as the newer Pocket Book. Each tool has a place in the whole.

Do we stop using Kent's Repertory because it doesn't contain Chocolate, Hydrogen, Germanium, Neon, Bamboo, or Ozone? We learn about the remedies well enough to recognize when a case might be in need of one of them, and then we go to the final arbiter-the materia medica and the primary sources of the provings for verification.

I had but two minor complaints with the book. I found that with my older eyes, the typeface was a bit light and small. But I've gotten used to that.

Another was the changing of the abbreviation of some remedies. I know that the current Latin nomenclature for Agnus castus is Vitex agnus castus, but abbreviating it as "Vitx" opens the door for so many more changes. Will we see "Ach" instead of Mill for Achillea millefolium and "Datu" for Datura stramonium? Where do we draw the line about accepting certain common standards?

And a slight discrepancy: Kreosotum is listed in the remedy list as Kreos but is abbreviated as Creos (as Boenninghausen did) in the rubrics.

All that said, the book is still very usable and, if one understand the methodology which Boenninghausen used, one should be able to get good clinical results using it.

If it serves to get more people to understand that there are other ways to find the simillimum than the one repertory they have been using and better, that the simillimum might have eluded them because their method used to find it was faulty-and this book provides the guide for another way into the problem-then it has served its purpose well.

If it serves to provide a cure to just one" unsolvable" case (and it certainly has done that already for those who have used it) then it becomes a priceless addition to our armamentarium.