What is a repertory?

(please read all the posts from the beginning or this won't make sense)

Let’s recap some ideas that have already been covered…

Hahnemann found that a like disease cured a like disease. He defined disease as a collection of individual symptoms, particular to each person experiencing said disease. He then invented remedies that created a set of symptoms that he catalogued. He kept accurate notes on these symptoms by observing people that took the remedies (even himself and his family). He compiled these sets of symptoms created for each remedy in a book called a Materia Medica. He now could match a remedy that caused a particular set of symptoms to a disease that showed the same symptoms. He could give an ill person that remedy and because the remedy was “similar” to the disease in the ill person, it would cure it.

But now we have a problem (us, not Hahnemann). For each remedy that he gave to his subjects (called provers), Hahnemann noted hundreds and hundreds of symptoms created. This huge set of symptoms wasn’t that big a deal for him because he could actually remember what symptom was created by what remedy. He could do that because he ate, slept and breathed this homeopathy 24/7. For us mortals, the sheer number of symptoms related to each individual remedy is overwhelming. So when we have an illness with a bunch of symptoms, we would have to wade through hundreds of pages (Materia Medica) of possible symptoms looking for those that matched OUR symptoms. You see we are just trying to find the homeopathic remedy that will create those symptoms that are closest to our own illness. And, we need to find the ONE remedy that is closest. What a dilemma and a bunch of work.

Then came von Boenninghausen (1785 to 1864). Boenninghausen was a pretty smart cookie… so smart in medicine that he was given an honorary degree without ever stepping foot in medical school. He was the homeopath that Hahnemann trusted for his own treatment. He was a real avid study of botanicals… plants were his passion and he grew fond of categorizing (as is the norm for that kind of stuff). He figured out a way to work backwards with the remedies and he created a book (an index) of symptoms categorized by parts of the body. He created a book that had categories like Head, Stomach, Eyes, etc and in each section a symptom like head ache, stomach upset, or eye redness, etc and for each symptom, a list of remedies. The remedies listed would create that particular symptom in a healthy person. You can imagine that this book was big. It had symptoms upon symptoms indexing the remedies that would create those symptoms.

This book was called a repertory. And the action of looking up symptoms in this book from those observed in an ill patient is called repertorizing. Well, repertorizing is a bit more that just looking up the symptoms, but you get the general idea.

Here is a comment from a reader on the last posting of "Man or Nature... which is smarter?"
----------------------
Michael said...
What has modern science and medicine given us in the last hundred years or so? How about twice as many years to live?I know, I know--stupid science.
----------------------
Hi Michael,

Excellent point!

Obviously I have not made my position properly. Let me expand a bit and see if this is clearer. I am a scientist. I have been one all my life and a thoughtful and reasoned thinker (I believe, but others may disagree). I realize that science is based on knowledge and knowledge is like a road made from bricks of fundamental ideas. Now we have progressed down this road guided by a fine science, but we have made certain suppositions along the way. Some fundamental ideas have been good and others bad. I look at the outcome of current disease, pesticides, surgical recommendations, veterinary medicine, and things as simple as milk or water as examples. I have attempted to expose these things for further review as examples of those things that strike me as nonsensical and possibly avoidable fundamental mistakes (outcomes). I expose them as dots to connect and follow back to where their genesis resides. Where in our past history do these ideas start and was there another fork in our road of scientific knowledge that could have been taken? It took me back to the 1800s and like most people (I think), I assumed that the people of that time were of lesser intelligence. It took almost no time at all to come to realize that they were not cavemen, but men with the exact same mental capacity of any of us today. Not a big revelation to some, but to me it was a humbling thought. And then I discovered the measured speech and warnings of homeopathy; the fork in the road (or one of many), at least from my interpretation. Well, we didn’t heed those warnings of suppressive medicine and working with nature. Here we are.

I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but I have seen the consequences and warnings that Hahnemann spoke of. I have verified in my mind that he was correct. But my opinion matters not one bit. I am here to say to anyone reading this- Find out for yourself. Look around you, your family, your friends, your children. Question others about their health or illness. Find someone over fifty that isn’t sick or taking a pharmaceutical to keep them going in one way or another and ask them how they live. Really! Live like they do. And if you can’t find them or very few of them, figure out why.

I am very glad you brought this subject up as it gives me a chance to show the side of the homeopaths. Homeopathy fought against the butchery of allopathic medicine throughout the 1800s and they were right. Homeopathy is strictly against suppressing symptoms and disease whenever possible. Homeopaths were the first to coin the term “vaccinosis” to describe the disease created by vaccines (mid to late 1800s). Homeopathy saved more lives by far in the flu epidemic of the early 1900s (1917) than allopathy did. That is not to mention epidemics of cholera and scarlet fever in the 1800s. And then homeopathy goes silent (1920s). The American Medical Association regulates them into non-existence.

Homeopathy believes that everyone no matter their lifespan should live free of illness.

Homeopathy believes that illness suppressed by drugs comes out in other places. Many times it comes through mental disease. And what have we been fighting for the last 50 years? And even with our children? Do people really want to take anti-psychotics and antidepressants their entire lives? I wager that everyone following this blog knows someone that is taking a drug for mental symptoms.

My point was to show some instances that are staring us in the face. Instances that defy common sense (granted, I can only speak for myself). I don’t think science is stupid and I don’t blame science, I blame us!!! I blame the thought that for each of these mistakes created by this current road of science, we believe there is not another parallel road that can be taken.

I just think that we are not critical of science and especially medicine. I think we are scared to ask questions and question the doctors. After all, if we tear down the doctors we have nothing left, right? Maybe, maybe not.

I am NOT saying to abandon your allopathic doctors and scientists. They have had stellar moments and not-so-stellar moments. I am saying that it doesn’t hurt to be critical of a system that sometimes makes no sense; giving forth some examples that should at least be questioned. I am also saying that the overall increase in lifespan MAY not justify the means.

There have been smart doctors and scientists in the past. It just seems that we didn’t listen very well to them and we don’t question the ones right here and right now very well either.


Now as far as lifespan. Let me give you a quick list of some individuals…

Hahnemann (1755-1843)- 88
Boenninghausen (1785-1864)- 79
Hering (1800-1880)- 80
Lippe (1812-1888)- 76
Kent (1849-1916)- 67
Boericke (1849-1929)- 80
Boger (1861-1935)- 74
Nash (1838-1917)- 79
Dunham (1828-1877)- 49
Dudgeon (1820-1904)- 84
Allen JH (1854-1925)- 71
Clarke (1853-1931)- 78
Dewey (1858-1938)- 80
Schmidt (1894-1987)- 93
Tyler (1857-1943)- 86
Bradford (1847-1918)- 71
Close (1860-1929)- 69
Roberts (1868-1950)- 82

All the above are homeopaths with their birth and death dates (almost all of them from the 1800s). I didn’t cherry pick the above, just some of my favorite homeopaths. Yes it is anecdotal evidence, but that is all I can muster at this time. We unfortunately didn’t keep good record of homeopathic practice in the 19th and early 20th century.

I too thought about the same subject of current life expectancy when I started to study homeopathy and was surprised to find the above. On top of this, most of these homeopaths worked until mere weeks before their death with all their faculties intact. Hahnemann is one good example.

Thanks Michael for your response. Hopefully I have made my position more clear and that everyone will take something from this and research what homeopathy has said.

Here is a link to verify the above biographical dates of homeopaths and a lot more to check…

http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/homeopathy_1755_1799.html

(Also, please see the first comment from Country Whispers on this posting)

Man or Nature… which is smarter?

That is my question to you… which is smarter, Man or Nature?

I have asked this question now of dozens of people. Almost to a person, their answer is Nature. Well, I am here to tell you that if you answered Nature, then with all due respect, you are a bit of a hypocrite. You say one thing and you live another. At a minimum, you are not fighting the fight for Nature. Let me explain…

My wife and I are the proud “parents” to two spunky little female dogs. Both of our puppies are relatively illness free, due in part to the fact that we treat them with good food and only the most necessary of legally required vaccinations (almost none). Now imagine my surprise when confronted by three separate veterinarians at different times and under differing situations that highly recommend that I have both of my “girls” fixed (spayed). After explaining to each veterinarian in turn that we were hyper-vigilant in making sure that our dogs would not single-handedly overpopulate the world, we were bombarded with the following: our dogs would bleed on everything in the house; they would develop mammary cancer and tumors in the ovaries and uterus; they would develop uterine infections that could cost ten times the amount that spaying would cost; and they would probably not live as long. To each veterinarian I asked the same question: Is the female reproductive tract killing my dog? How could this be possible? Of course, their response was that it is more likely that my doggies will suffer these ailments and they won’t miss their reproductive tracts anyway. Hmmmm… they won’t miss their reproductive tracts? How do you know that? Why were they not born spayed to begin with? But more to the point, would you do this to your little girl? Your human little girl? Of course not! How absurd to even mention it!!! We have to wait until she is older…

Ok, this line of thought has probably riled quite of few of my readers a bit. Animals are animals after all, right? We can just mold them for our convenience. We do it all the time. We make new fruits, flowers, Africanized bees (um, scratch that). We know what we are doing and we can tamper with nature all we want. Because, um, we are smarter? But that is not the point (quite yet). In the 1950s and 1960s medical doctors were faced with the typical tonsillitis (sore throat) that afflicts most children. It was seen as an epidemic and out came the scalpels and scissors (snip snip- ice cream)… epidemic of tonsillitis averted. Fast forward thirty years and medical doctors tout the fact that tonsils are part of our immune system and NOT the cause of an illness that afflicts them. What a revelation! An organ is not the cause of an illness that afflicts it. Quick! Let’s tell the veterinarians!

In the 1950s we invented chemical fertilizers and insecticides and you name it. We needed plants to grow faster and bugs to die faster. Talk to a person that was at the forefront of these products and used them. Chances are that you can’t talk to ANY of them… they are long gone; many at a young age, at least younger than their normal lifespan from insidious cases of cancers that riddled their bodies. And now we find that these fertilizers and insecticides go right into the plants, are eaten by the livestock, are eaten by us. Is that a problem?

And then some of you are saying that was ancient history, long ago. Well if you think that fifty years is ancient times, then you should sign up for the medical profession. They seem to measure revolutionary change in decades; abandoning their latest greatest advancements at every generation; right near the limit of our memory capacity. And you the reader are supporting this mind set. You are supporting the idea that man can change nature and improve it. Your wives, girlfriends, daughters and mothers are having hysterectomies at every opportunity (following the sage advice of a “knowledgeable” physician). Is the reproductive tract the cause of their problems? It’s just a question.

Many take a cholesterol lowering drug to prevent a heart attack when any doctor can tell you that 85% of cholesterol is produced by the liver. So why are we not treating the liver (not suppressing it) or better still, figuring out why it is producing too much cholesterol to begin with? Could we just take a moment and look at the body as a set of connected parts instead of unrelated medical specialties?

We now have lakes all over the USA that show rising levels of ibruprofen, heart medications, estrogen from birth control pills (among many other pharmaceuticals); male fish are growing eggs and becoming feminized. And when it really starts to sink in that we then recycle that water and drink it ourselves, it will be fifty more years and we will bemoan how stupid we were “back then”.

We take perfectly good cow’s milk and basically boil (pasteurize) it until we are sure it has no “koodies”. Then we expect it to have some nutrition? Ok, not enough tampering. So we give the cows antibiotics and throw in some growth hormones (BGH) because they don’t produce enough. Now we are slowly figuring out that what we give them may just be coming though the milk? It is still under investigation (for about twenty more years by my clock- which will make a total fifty since we started this BGH tampering).

A few years ago there was an astounding discovery… women were getting depressed after giving birth. Ok, fine. So the doctor gives this new mother some Valium. She feels much better. But wait… now the baby has high levels of Valium? Could it be the breast milk? If it is the breast milk (which it is), we should probably pasteurize it first!

I could go on and on. Obviously our attempts at “improving” Mother Nature work for a while, but we always seem to find out different every thirty to fifty years or just after the demise of the generation of doctors and scientists that stupidly lead us down the wrong road. And we are told by a new smarter set of doctors and scientists that NOW we have the solution.

Do you need thousands of instances to prove that we are less smart than nature? No, you said so at the beginning. So when faced with a history of failures and increased drugs and disease, why do you follow these advances in medical science so blindly (unquestioningly) and not accept a truly natural system of medicine practiced for many more years than our current system. A system that started by speaking out against vaccinations, bleedings and leeches in the 1800s and continues to speak out against unnatural treatment today. A system with little to no changes in the remedies that they first discovered. Remedies that don’t addict, suppress illness or pollute the environment. A system that tells us to stop messing with nature. A system that promotes the bodies’ own natural healing mechanism. A system that sees the body as a complete functioning organism that has no expendable organs. A system whose basic premise is to cure all illness. Because you haven’t heard of such a system? Well, that system is Homeopathy.

Remedy Potencies

It is common to find homeopathic remedies in health food stores. They are listed by 30X or 30C or whatever. These numbers and letters signify the potency of the remedy. X potency is made by taking one drop of a natural material substance (like ink from squid-Sepia) and diluting it in 10 drops of water/ alcohol (X is 10 potency). C potency is taking the same substance and diluting it in 100 drops of water/alcohol (C is 100 potency). Then one drop is taken from that X or C potency after succussion and diluted in another 10 or 100 drops respectively. Each stage produces the next potency as in 10X to 11X or 12C to 13C. The X potencies are used much more rarely than the C potencies. There is just a sweet spot where the C potencies are more useful. Potencies can be diluted and succussed many thousands of times to produce M potency (1000), 10M, 50M, CM (100M) and MM (1000M). It should be noted that these high potencies are not to be used lightly and should be given by experienced homeopaths.

The most common potency for acute or short lived illness like colds, flu, sprains, headaches, etc is 30C and 200C. These two potencies are safe to use by laymen as long as you follow the rules dictated by Hahnemann. Remember the minimal dose.

Kits of homeopathic remedies can be purchased in 30C or 200C potency for about $100-$200 which would be good to treat common acute family illnesses. A kit can last for many, many years and is well worth the cost. In fact, as long as remedies are kept from light and strong odors as in cleaners and the like, they will last for decades (at least). The resulting cost of treating acute illness once a layman has learned how it is done, is about five cents per illness.

Chronic illness or long lived illness is best treated by LM potencies which were developed by Hahnemann before he died. These potencies are not frequently seen because most homeopaths never learned about them… remember Hahnemann’s last Organon was lost for 70 years. LM potency is a dilution of 1 to 500 and creates a very deep acting remedy while making it less aggravating to the patient (more mild). LM are normally found from LM1 to LM30. (Beginners should not attempt to treat Chronic illness without help from an experienced homeopath… it is just too complex to approach without experience).

Law of Cure

The law of cure that is mostly credited to Constantine Hering (1800-1880) states that the cure of illness progresses from the head downward, from the more important organ to the lesser important organ, from the center outward and from the newest of ailments to the oldest (in layers). The importance of this idea is to know when and by what degree an illness is being cured. A practiced homeopath will follow symptoms through their course looking for these very signs to determine when and if the illness is being cured. This is also known as Hering’s Law of Cure.

Illness will follow the exact opposite course of cure if it is left untreated. Illness progresses inward, upward, and to the most important of organs. Often an ailment that progresses to the nervous system and bones has been long lived. Noting the location of disease will give a timeline to when it started.

The Minimal Dose

Hahnemann proved by careful experimentation that a properly potentized (powerful) remedy should only be given in the smallest possible dose to affect a cure. This theory is borne out by any good homeopath in the practice of watching potentized remedies perform their action. It doesn’t take long to realize that homeopathic remedies are very powerful and need to be used with some care. The idea of only giving the “minimal dose” is the foundation behind keeping this care uppermost in mind. Patients are often amazed that such a small amount of homeopathic medicine is needed to affect a considerable amount of healing. In fact, there really is no material quantity to homeopathic remedies as they are diluted until only the energy of the original material is left.

Modern chemistry can find no real material product in homeopathic remedies. This does not mean that there is nothing to them. To those that have experience, the existence of the remedy energy is obvious. Also, highly potentized remedies are very powerful and should only be prescribed by experienced homeopaths; they are nothing to be toyed or experimented with.

Also be aware that such a small or minimal dose is very safe in its effect. Because homeopathic remedies are natural, given in small quantity and work to stimulate the Vital Force, they are MUCH safer than pharmaceutical medicines. They cause no long term effects unless incorrectly prescribed over a very long term (months or years) or flagrantly misused. They are not addicting and can be antidoted if needed. Antidoting is rarely if ever necessary if prescribing specific to the rules dictated by Hahnemann.

The Remedy (part 3 of 3)

The way Hahnemann created higher potencies in his remedies (after many years of trial and error) was to take a natural substance, crush it, pulverize it and then dilute it with alcohol or distilled water. Then he would take one drop of that dilution and dilute it again. In between dilutions, he would shake the solution by banging it against a springy type surface (like a thick book). He called the process of shaking/banging the solution, “succussion” or “succussing”. It is the succussion that increases the strength of the remedy during processing. The succussion would bring out more pronounced symptoms from a crude substance that had been diluted and create a potentized (high strength) “medicine”, called a Homeopathic Remedy.

As Hahnemann diluted dozens of crude materials to make into remedies, he gave the potentized remedies to groups of “provers” and made note of the symptoms that each remedy created in these individuals. Symptoms were then catalogued for each potentized remedy and kept in a book called the Homeopathic Materia Medica. This book is essentially a list of all symptoms created in a healthy person by ingesting a particular potentized remedy. During his lifetime, Hahnemann created and personally tested (proved) dozens of remedies. Now Hahnemann had his similar diseases and with them could treat and cure illness. Not obvious? Let’s take an example…

Hahnemann is approached by an ill patient who says he has pains in his eyes when looking down, frequent numbness in his fingers and legs and a ringing in his ears that will not go away. First, there is a check of the catalog of remedies (Materia Medica) and a search for the remedy that causes these same symptoms; Hahnemann reaches for the dilution of some substance that has shown in his “provers” to produce the exact same symptoms (Natrum Muriaticum- Latin name for common table salt- potentized). This remedy has been strengthened by succussion (banging and shaking) to make it strong and potent. This remedy creates an artificial disease that is to be greater or “bigger” than the natural disease of the patient (yet it is a similar disease). He gives this remedy to the ill patient… providing or causing a similar “disease” of symptoms to extinguish the same symptoms in the patient. The patient is cured by the law that “like cures like”. No two similar diseases can coexist within an individual; the greater disease will squash the smaller disease that is similar. One “medicinal” disease (the artificial disease created by the remedy- Nat Mur (abbreviation)) extinguishes the real disease in the patient because it is greater due to potentizing.

The End!

Just kidding, there is a lot more, but you now have the basic idea of how Homeopathy works.