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PREFATORY NOTE TO THE REPERTORY
With the advent of the incomparable Ninth Edition of the progressive
pocket Materia Medica, its modest companion, the Repertory, has
been completely remodeled and brought up to date, by embodying much
of the newly incorporated material. Many of the Sections have been
carefully rewritten, and, with appropriate expansion, offer a more
trustworthy guide for the selection of the homeopathic remedy. A
few prefatory remarks, pertaining to the practical and expeditious
use of the repertorial contents, may assist in clarifying a certain
inevitable obscurity of plan.
Firstly, in conformity with established repertorial methods, the
division of the sections in somewhat the old Hahnemannian
order is adhered to, and may be stated as follows: Mind; Head; Eyes;
Ears, etc.
Secondly, for the purpose of convenience, solely, headings
and sub-headings and specific conditions or symptoms comprised
under the latter are arranged in alphabetical order, and
this is more or less consistently adhered to throughout the entire
work. For example, under Mind the headings read, Awkward, brain-fag,
catalepsy, etc.; likewise the heading Delirium embraces its various
phases in alphabetical order.
Thirdly, all headings when extensive in scope -e.g.,
Headache, are presented under definite captions in the following
order: Cause, Type, Location, Character of pain, Concomitants, Modalities
-i.e., Aggravations and Ameliorations. It is to be observed
that some headings include only a few, whereas others include all
of these divisions. This method has been resorted to simply to facilitate
the task of the use of the repertory.
Fourth, to preserve uniformity, the technical names of diseases
are bracketed, thereby assuming a subsidiary place, which is in
strict accord with the homeopathic requirement, to prescribe for
the symptoms of each specific case, and not for a mere name of a
disease. Of course, being a clinical and not a truly symptomatological
index (for which the practitioner and student are referred to the
monumental works of Kent, Knerr and Clarke) technical terms are
often selected as main headings, and when feasible, the more or
legs complete symptoms constitute the sub-headings. Fifthly, the remedies are arranged in alphabetical
order, and the italics indicate the more frequently verified
clinical remedy. The abbreviations of the remedies are purely
arbitrary and self-explanatory.
A complete alphabetical Index, newly added, will surely offer much
assistance to the busy practitioner, in the ready reference to the
specific information desired.
Lastly, it a only by the persistent use of one repertory,
that its peculiar and intricate arrangements gradually crystallizes
itself in definite outline, in the mind of the student of the same,
and thus he attains the ready ease and practical insight of the
collator, thereby rendering such a clinical bee-line well-nigh indispensable
in our day of labor-saving devices.
OSCAR E. BOERICKE, M.D.
Philadelphia, Pa., June, 1927.
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