New World Veterinary Repertory

Just as Columbus’ discovery of the New World heralded a new age of exploration,  the introduction of this much anticipated repertory  ushers in a new era for veterinary homeopaths. Distilled from many decades of clinical experience, cured cases and based on reliable sources, the New World Veterinary Repertory is a gift to homeopathic veterinarians and the animals they treat  and will undoubtedly become an indispensable tool in your practice. — Beth Niles, Synergy Homeopathic

Order from:

Narayana Publishers (the publisher of the book). They will ship UPS, taking 5 days to get to the US. Also free shipping if purchase over 120 euros (as of Sept. 2015 = to $136 US. At present the cost of the repertory is $158 US dollars which qualifies for free shipping.

Reviews of the New World Repertory

Marc Baer, DVM (Homeopathic Veterinarian and Educator, Switzerland)

I have used repertories all my veterinary life long, which is now for nearly 30 years. Over the years I had been working with Kent’s Final General Repertory, with the Boger Boenningshausen Repertory, the Repertorium Generale and on database Synthesis, Winstaphise and the Complete Repertory. Besides these books I also made acquaintance with the repertories of Knerr, Boenninghausen (therapeutic pocket book), Boericke, Ward (sensations as if), Ferreol (a small veterinary repertory) and others. Having received the New World Veterinary Repertory my first thought was, I have to admit, “one more in the pack“.

I then started to look into Richard Pitcairn’s and Wendy Jensen’s repertory and saw how useful it can be. It’s a good compilation of mainly Boger and Kent. This is a huge advantage as a lot of the additions in the new repertories are highly speculative, unfounded and misleading. Richard and Wendy didn’t get trapped to put too many information into the book.

A second advantage is the reduction to rubrics useful in veterinary homoeopathy. This way our veterinary repertories become easier to navigate within. Of course the choice of rubrics is also a personal choice of Richard and Wendy. The rubrics don’t only tell about remedies, but also about which rubrics proved to be important in the veterinary career of both of them. In other words a user of the New World Repertory doesn’t only profit from the two reasons stated above, but also from the immense knowledge these practitioners have gathered over the years.

I want to add one thing which seems so important to me. Please do read the introduction. In some side remarks Richard and Wendy do make some very important statements. The value of mental (mind) symptoms in a case is clearly stated – truly according to Hahnemann’s thoughts. Amidst so many books overrating emotions, amongst so many authors using rather speculation then reasoning in homeopathy the words of Richard and Wendy are absolutely important.

If I have one point that I would have liked to be different, it’s the source of the remedies in the rubrics that aren’t mentioned. To know whether an entry comes from Boger or Kent might be a luxury, but nevertheless in a few cases it would be worthwhile.

All in all I can recommend the New World Repertory to any practitioner. Back to the roots is the claim that Richard Pitcairn and Wendy Jensen are making, a claim that I advise to follow.

Francis Treuherz, MA RSHom FSHom, a knowledgeable registered homeopath, who has been in practice for 30 years and is a teacher and author of several books on homeopathy.

I have become very excited by this repertory. I can hear you say, “ … What a fool is this, excited by a repertory? Get a life!” I know nothing of animals; I cross the road when I see a dog; but I think I know a little about repertories. In my library of 9,791 volumes there are 668 repertories. This one is solidly constructed on strong paper, in tough dark red boards, with a carefully cut thumb index and a ribbon. The font and punctuation is very clear, readable without effort, the grades in Bold, italic and regular are clear, as are the indentations for sub-rubrics. It looks and handles like a real repertory, much like an original full size Kent. 

Everything appears to be in the right place. After 2 Prefaces by the authors (or maybe better named as compilers?) there are Instructions for Using the Repertory (of which more in a moment) and Acknowledgements. Then there is an indispensable section, an Expanded Chapter List: this enumerates the contents in 10 pages of 4 columns each. This is what other recent major works on plants have lacked, a usable page index so the reader can find things. As an example I was delighted to see that in Stomach, the Aversions and Desires are back where they belong. Each chapter includes Locations, Concomitants, and Sensations in a systematic order and the reader can see at a glance how each section is laid out; as I wrote, this is indispensable. Of course there are some additions we shall not have seen before; nor, unless we are veterinarians, which I am not, we would not have predicted them: for example Extremities includes Anterior and Posterior limbs! There is an index of remedy names and abbreviations at the end. Neither remedies nor rubrics are sourced but I believe that so many of them must come from the personal and professional experience of the compilers.

Richard Pitcairn’s Preface is a masterpiece. In a few days I shall be teaching a group of first year homeopathy students on the development of the repertory and how to use it. This essay is precisely on that topic and although I have been teaching this module for over 20 years there is always some text that I discover does it better than I can; this is one such case. He explains the need for repertories and the layout compares the Kentian and the Boenninghausen methods and displays some cases to analyse and repertorise. Homeopathy has a beautiful philosophy that distinguishes it from allopathy and one aspect is that it reasons from research on humans and applies it to animals. Nowhere is that better illustrated than in this book, so we human homeopaths can use the clarity of expression found here and return the compliment. 

This takes me back to some 20 years ago in Oxford when an enterprising young veterinarian who trained alongside human homeopaths presented a video case of a dog and a horse. The horse was corralling or rounding up the dog, turning the tables on the dog. Pulsatilla was given to the horse. The same man many years later prescribed for an aggressive rabbit which growled and pounced on a child as an ‘attack rabbit’ behaving like a tiger, and after considering Lac leonum the rabbit did well on Tiger’s milk. 

This brings me to the 25-page chapter on the mentals. It is so short and well laid-out that is provides a first-rate introduction not only to the mind of the animal kingdom but an easy introduction to the mind section for humans, which by 2011 had reached 1432 pages in the Complete Repertory in the latest print version. Yes, animals have delusions when they pick at imaginary vermin or lunge at non-existent phantoms. They can be dejected or affectionate and show it; all animal life is there. The only snag of this brevity for veterinarians can be overcome by looking at a human repertory if more mental symptoms are discerned. This might also apply for newer remedies not added to this repertory like the Lacs; they are there in the human printed editions and in the computer editions. I really really hope that this new repertory edition will soon be added to MacRepertory™; Richard does use MacRepertory charts to display in his Preface. The further Instructions for Using the Repertory is by Wendy Jensen and these fill all the gaps to explain the format and technicalities for newcomers like concomitants. 

The rest is straightforward; the life and bulk of the repertory are the chapters and their rubrics, thanks to the clarity of thought and exposition that has gone into the creation of this work. I speculate that on another level, that since some animal diseases are transmissible to humans, there is another reason that this book will be of interest to us human homeopaths. If my delight in this new modern classic work – and it’s value for our work – can be shared, I shall be happy.

Review, by Sheila Mukerjee-Guzik, of the German language Edition of the repertory. (This is the translation into English arranged by Dr. Pitcairn)

On The Mark For Animal Patients

Richard Pitcairn’s and Wendy Jensen’s repertory, build on Boger’s edition of C. von Bönninghausen’s repertories, was compiled for the special requirements of homeopathic veterinarians.

The “New World Veterinary Repertory” ( Das Große Repertorium der Tierheilkunde) by Richard Pitcairn and Wendy Jensen is a milestone in the line of homeopathic repertories, as it finally offers veterinarians the first comprehensive reference book in German language specifically for the homeopathic treatment of animals. Repertories are essential tools in homeopathic work. The abundance of information related to a homeopathic remedy, a remedy being determined through testing and clinical experience, is being sorted, displayed and understood in a structured manner and therefore becomes readily available to aid in the process of finding the right remedy.

In regards to the treatment of animals the work with the repertory faces a special challenge as the information contained in it was gathered working with humans and has to be translated to working with animals. Animals can only communicate in a limited way what is happening to them and the veterinarian has to rely on objective observation of symptoms. Therefore mental and emotional symptoms and moods might only be determined in a general manner. There is a high risk of falsely interpreting those observations which might lead to the wrong selection of a category. Because of that it seems to make sense to focus the selection of symptoms on localization, modalities, accompanying symptoms and general symptoms when treating animals homeopathically.

Repertories that were available until now were made for humans and contained numerous categories that can’t be applied to work with animals or only in a limited way. More recent repertories, for example “Synthesis”  might offer a chapter titled  “Veterinary Repertory” but are of limited practical value.

That’s where the “New World Veterinary Repertory” ( Das Große Repertorium der Tierheilkunde) by Richard Pitcairn and Wendy Jensen comes in. In their many years of being practicing homeopathic veterinarians they repeatedly felt the limitations of the available repertories and the need for a special repertory for veterinary medicine became increasingly obvious. After several futile attempts Boger’s edition of C. von Bönninghausen’s Repertories was chosen as a base. The first step was to delete all categories that were irrelevant for animals.

Then entries from other works like the Kent’s Repertory and Boger’s “Synoptic Key”, but also from a diversity of other sources and from significant practical experience, were added.

Language and labels were adjusted to common nomenclature, diseases specific to animals were added and remedies limited to those that are valuable in veterinary medicine, especially in treating chronic diseases in animals.

At the beginning of the repertory is a table of contents with categories of the first level rubrics. At one glance you’ll find the content of the repertory summarized in twelve pages. This way categories can be found in a much more efficient manner. Almost every chapter contains a list of modalities and accompanying symptoms and the categories of the first level are sorted alphabetically.

The sequence is the same as in more common repertories, beginning with a chapter “disposition/mood” and ends with a chapter “general/overall”. But some things are different, for example the differentiation of the inner and the outer head, front and back legs.

The category for the rejection or desire of foods and drinks aren’t in the chapter “general/overall” but in the chapter “stomach”‘ which definitely makes sense.

The presentation of the categories and remedies is clearly laid out and numerous cross references allow the practitioner to find similar and sometimes better fitting categories. Sources are not specified, my personal opinion is that that makes it much more user friendly. The limitation to a selection of remedies that have been verified to be effective in years of extensive testing and practical application is created for a clinic that has to work efficiently.

Same applies to the chapter on “disposition/mood” that was kept short on purpose. Furthermore every practitioner is free to fall back on human repertories with their extensive information on symptoms regarding “disposition/mood”. In the back of the book there is a list of references and a complete list of used abbreviations.

It is highly recommended to read the introduction and instruction how to use the repertory before practical application and to study the table of contents repeatedly. That will ease the work with the repertory and immensely aid in finding the categories that are searched for.

My conclusion is that the “Große Repertorium der Tierheilkunde” (The Large Repertory of Veterinary Medicine aka New World Veterinary Repertory) is an indispensable tool for all homeopathic veterinarians. The clear presentation and user friendly design including size of print, and thumb index, created by people with expericence for practical application, allows an accurate prescription of homeopathic remedies for animal patients.

Review from Anthony Krawitz, BVSc, DVM, CVH. Dr. Krawitz is a graduate of the Professional Course in Veterinary Homeopathy, finishing in 1996 and operates the Calusa Animal Hospital in Boca Raton, Florida.

The New World Veterinary Repertory had become my “go to” repertory. From the interesting and educational prefaces and “how to use” introduction, to the animal oriented repertory based on the Boger-Boenninghausen method of prescribing, my ability to find remedies has become much more accurate and quicker. Thank you to Richard Pitcairn and Wendy Jensen!

Review from Carolyn J. Benson, DVM who finished the Professional Course in Veterinary Homeopathy in 1999. Dr. Benson operates the Chartwell Veterinary Clinic in Toronto, Canada.

I’ve never looked back since adding the New World Veterinary Repertory to my collection. It is my first reference for all of my cases.

 

The Pitcairn Preface to the New World Repertory

(The text that follows is the same as in the book and also in the MacRepertory computer module, and can also be read as a pdf file here.)

Why Make This Repertory?

— Richard Pitcairn, DVM, PhD When I began to study homeopathy with some seriousness, about 1978, I first learned to use the Kent repertory and that was my reference text for about ten years. This is an excellent repertory, one that I still use, often on a daily basis. Yet if we ask “what is the best repertory for the veterinarian?” then we must refer to the types of patients that we encounter. Our homeopathic work, if to be successful, must be based on the information forthcoming from the patient. Immediately we see differences from dealing with the human patient.

Kent’s Method

The method of Kent is to emphasize the mental and the general symptoms, working from these into the modifying factors — the modalities — and when necessary using some particular symptoms with which to differentiate.  There is understandably the inclusion of some details of the mental and emotional state as well as sensations. With animals these are just not available. We can recognize emotions in animals but they are much more broadly categorized than in a person. We can say “fear” but not the details of the fear. We can say “anger” but not type of anger or really understand, for sure, the accuracy of calling it anger instead of fear or irritability or rage.  A common example is the dog that is afraid of thunder. There is a rubric that is specific for this fear and sometimes it seems to be accurate to apply it to the fearful dog. But in my experience more often than not the more accurate way to understand it is “fear of noise” of which thunder happens to be a big example. Another difference in evaluating animal conditions is the difficulty in separating the general symptoms (affecting the whole individual) with the particular symptoms (affecting just a part). If it was a person they could tell us, but this must be inferred from observation of the animal. So we see that the approach of Kent, though very good, does not really work so well in animal cases because we just do not have the same accuracy of information. If we couple this with, in our time, how often we homeopathic veterinarians are presented with cases of chronic disease, instead of acute injuries, toxicities and infectious diseases, we can appreciate the challenge we face in doing this work. These chronic cases are almost never presented to us in their nascent or unmodified form. Often, the homeopathic veterinarian is turned to only after other treatments, that have muddled the appearance of the patient’s condition, make seeing the similar remedy even more difficult.  As Kent has told us, with non-curative treatment the first symptoms to go are the characteristic ones, the most useful information and what we need to be certain of our remedy selection. These animals have pathology, often advanced pathology, and we know that pathology is the least useful guide to finding the remedy that is needed.

The Newer Repertories

With time, other repertories came along as general interest in homeopathy developed, especially notable the Synthetic Repertory by Barthel and Kent’s General Repertory edited by Künzli. These were very helpful and I used them quite a bit. Then more expanded repertories began to appear, such as Synthesis by Frederik Shroyens and The Complete by Roger Van Zandvoort. Somewhere along these development lines I began to feel a shift in my work.  As the number of rubrics increased, along with much larger rubrics from added remedies, I could see my analyses were not as definitive as they had been and I had more trouble feeling satisfied with the outcome. Simply put there was too much information and it was confusing. I do find that these larger, more inclusive repertories are very useful in some cases especially where I am searching for a particular symptom or a detailed emotional state but in most of my cases they are not advantageous.

Philosophical Approaches To Repertory Construction

I pondered the situation and came to the realization that there were two possible philosophies in developing a repertory. One is to expand it as much as possible, adding in all possible information so that the repertory was almost as complete as the materia medica itself. The other possibility was the opposite. Rather than strive for completeness of the rubrics by putting in every possible remedy, the large available inventory of remedies is assessed, through clinical application, for usefulness and only the ones that are clinically confirmed as being most often needed, the polychrests mostly, are kept in the repertory and are used to construct the rubrics.  After all, 200 years of clinical experience in which the most useful remedies are identified is an extraordinary resource. As an example, consider that for a particular condition, such as the common cold, the materia medica medica contains hundreds remedies that would seem to have some similarity (the Complete Repertory 2009 has 577 for this condition). However, as they are used in clinical practice it becomes apparent that really only about 30 are usually needed, one of the others being occasionally applicable but rarely. In fact, it may be that only 8-10 remedies will handle 90% of what is commonly seen. So in constructing a rubric for this condition, we have the choice of a very large rubric of hundreds of remedies — that will be difficult to narrow down to a small group for materia medica study — or we can start with a limited rubric of just the 30-40 most often needed ones, realizing that this will likely cover 98% of the cases we see.

The Boenninghausen Repertory

Coming from this latter perspective I spent some time using a variety of other repertories and came to the conclusion that the one repertory that best demonstrated this  “winnowing” approach was the Boenninghausen repertory as edited by Boger. Before this perspective I had assumed that the rubrics in the Boenninghausen repertory were smaller because there was not enough information known at that time, or perhaps too few remedies, or not enough experience, etc. but as I used it, and understood the philosophical basis for it, I found it to be extraordinarily useful and accurate for all my cases — animal or human. I came to the realization that it had been deliberately designed to be a compilation of the most likely remedies in each rubric. It may be more clear to put it like this: if we match a symptom from the patient, one that is important in the case (based on the corresponding intensity, persistence, or recurrence of that symptom) to the corresponding rubric, there is a very high probability that the rubric will contain the remedy needed. That in itself, it is a focus that is very practical. The last 10 years or so the Boenninghausen repertory (edited by Boger) has been the reference I first turn to and which I use in the great majority of my cases.

Experience From Teaching

A parallel influence was that, from 1992, I had a post-graduate, year long, training program for veterinarians in the use of homeopathy. From this perspective I could appreciate the difficulty the students had in using the repertories arranged for working with human patients. There is much information that only a human being can report — sensations, types of pain, locations, detailed mental and emotional symptoms. One can, of course, learn to ignore this information (as I did) but I began to think how nice it would be to have a repertory re-edited towards veterinary use.

The Boenninghausen Method

So these two influences came together and why I found the strategy of Boenninghausen to holds us in good stead. The Boenninghausen “method” was developed early on, in the time of Hahnemann. He worked with both people and animals and as his experience grew he proposed a different way of using the symptoms of the patient, one closer to the way Hahnemann understood a case. He divided the symptoms like this, in order of importance:

  • Location (the focus of the lesion or disturbance).
  • Sensations.
  • Modalities.
  • Concomitants.
  • General symptoms.
  • Mentals.

Concomitants

The introduction of the idea of concomitants also came from Boenninghausen and is an extremely useful tool, one he emphasized in his repertory. He recognized a pattern in both patients and in those doing provings, an association of symptoms, some that would arise right before or at the same time as the main complaint. That association, the two symptoms together, was able to very much narrow the choice of remedies as there were fewer remedies that would have that association. He called these associated symptoms concomitants.

Generalized Modalities and Concomitants

Another difference with Boenninghausen, one actually that Kent did not like, was his extending some of the symptoms, the modalities and concomitants, into the category of “generals” which could be applied to an entire section of the repertory. If you look at the Respiratory section as an example, at the top of that section you will see rubric headings “Aggravation”, “Amelioration”, and “Concomitants”. So the listings in these will apply to all the other symptoms in the Respiratory section of the repertory. Why did Boenninghausen do this? He based this on the clinical observation that a modality that aggravated bronchitis would also aggravate other respiratory symptoms in the patient. He also observed the same in provings. He concluded this was a reliable rule — that modalities tended to be generalized in most patients, “general” not in that they would appear in the General Section of the repertory but that they could be generalized to other conditions affecting the same part or function of the patient, thus by analogy the same repertory section. Further investigation confirmed that same could be done with concomitant symptoms. Here is an example of applying one of the modalities in the Respiratory section to the other listings that are there (the symptoms and conditions). In the “Aggravation” grouping there is the rubric: Respiration; AGG.; Anger, vexation, etc.: Ign., ran-b., STAPH. There are three remedies in this rubric and and each of them could apply to any of the following symptoms. For example, if a patient had difficult breathing (one of the rubrics) and it was observed that they were made worse by getting upset, getting angry, then one could turn to the modality listed above and consider these three remedies: Ignatia, Ranunculus, and Staphysagria as a possible fit for this patient. That this modality was seen in the patient, is a hint that one of these remedies could be the appropriate remedy. It does not always work out that it is one of these remedies, but is certainly worth consideration of the possibility. However, and here is what is different, the patient could, instead of having difficult breathing, have rattling of mucus (another rubric) and was also worse when emotionally upset by becoming angry. Then, again, the same modality rubric of the three remedies would apply and be worth perusing. The same approach is used with concomitant symptoms. In the Respiratory section, there is a rubric “Concomitants” without any subrubrics which is different than what we just discussed with the Aggravation modalities which did have an extensive listing. It is interpreted like this: The respiratory condition in our patient is attended with other symptoms occurring right before or at the same time as the respiratory symptom of interest. The details of that concomitant symptom are not specified by this Concomitant rubric, so the meaning is this: just having any concomitant symptom, regardless of what it is like, is enough to apply this rubric. In some sections, the Concomitants list is quite extensive. In the Cough section, for example, there are many detailed concomitants. A specific example for that section would be a patient with a hacking cough made worse by anxiety or fear  (8 remedies). So we see that Boenninghausen arranged the concomitant symptoms to be used in the same way as the modalities. In summary, the way that Boenninghausen arranged these groupings is by moving the modalities and concomitants out of subheadings under specific conditions and put them into a more generalized grouping for that repertory section. At first look one would think this cannot be accurate as it is an assumption beyond the information that has been gathered in provings, and of course there are obvious exceptions. His observations were indeed based on clinical experience and also on the study of provings but Boenninghausen extended it further and used it to find his remedies in other cases. One could have a patient with a respiratory condition affected by a modality, yet that relationship had never been described in a proving before. Nonetheless, the “generalized” modality rubric could still be applied to that patient with success in finding the suitable remedy. I was not sure about this suggestion of Boenninghausen when I first starting using the Boger/Boenninghausen repertory but I found that my experience also confirmed this as a good approach, often solving cases for me that no other method did. Like any method it is not perfect nonetheless it is surprisingly useful and reliable.

Kent’s Approach

This is quite different than the way Kent structured his repertory. There you will find in the various repertory sections that the modalities are assigned to individual symptoms and you will see these modalities listed as subrubrics under that symptom. For example, in the Respiratory section of Kent, there is the rubric for accelerated respiration and under that, as a subrubric, there is “while lying down”. So we understand, from the way it is arranged, that the modality of worse from lying down applies to just the symptom of accelerated respiration. There are many other places in the Respiratory section that this modality of worse lying is given, however always under specific headings, detailed symptoms like the accelerated respiration one. This is the way that Kent preferred it, thinking it more accurate, and it is indeed a very useful arrangement.

Animal Cases

In working animal cases we find it a most useful method and the way that the Boenninghausen method is used in animals is similar to what is described above (the list of symptom types as to importance). We cannot include “sensations” though occasionally we can make a reasonable guess at one.  An example that comes to mind is the dog that will suddenly turn and begin to chew frantically at a place on the skin. They act just like bitten by a flea and sometimes it is accurate to use a skin rubric such as “biting sensation” or “stinging sensation”. However, most of the time we have to work without this idea of semi-certainty. So our emphasis, by necessity, is on:

  • Location.
  • Modalities.
  • Concomitants.
  • Generals.

Mental symptoms can sometimes be used, as I described above, but most often after other symptoms have narrowed down to a remedy group and we are making our final differentiation by bringing in the mental/emotional behavior as a help in deciding our remedy choice.

The Editing Process

In using the Boger/Boenninghausen repertory as our foundation, Wendy Jensen and I went through an editing that retained the philosophical structure that Boenninghausen introduced (and developed further by Boger).  We removed what was not useful to our work and also brought in information from Kent, Boger and Jahr as our primary sources, as well as useful information from other repertories such as Knerr, Boericke and Allen’s Encyclopedia that would add remedies to some of the most important rubrics for us as veterinarians. So the first part of the editing process was “cleaning up” the Boger/Boenninghausen repertory by taking out information not useful to us in our veterinary work — the sensations, the details of pain, the symptoms that simply could not be recognized in animals. Then, that done, we were especially interested in adding rubrics from other sources, especially Kent, that we would often want to find for our animal work. An example that comes to mind is a greenish discharge from the nose. Another is a rubric that characterizes the very frequent condition of ear irritation with excessive oily wax production in dogs (these days often diagnosed as “yeast infection”). So we searched for these rubrics or created them newly from the search of materia medica. When more than one rubric was found in other sources for the symptom of interest, then we would combine them including the remedies from two or more rubrics and retaining the highest grading for the remedies that were duplicated. In some instances a rubric of veterinary interest was already in Boenninghausen but the rubric could be enlarged from other sources to our advantage. There are a number of such rubrics frequently seen in practice for which we would love to have more information of possible remedies to consider, so based on our experience in practice we paid special attention to these. The addition of remedies from other sources has increased the range of remedies to consider for cases. The Boger/Boenninghausen repertory has 342 remedies while Kent has 624. So we will see in this new veterinary repertory some remedies that are not in the original Boger/Boenninghausen.

A Case Example

Moses, a 5 year old male cat, has become recently ill. He is very lethargic and completely lost his appetite. If made to stand he cries out. He has not moved for 24 hours. There is a fever going from 103.5 F. (39.7 C) to 105 F. (40.6 C). Blood analysis shows a normal WBC count, normal neutrophil levels but very low lymphocyte and monocyte numbers—suggesting a marked migration of these cells to some extravascular site. These values are also elevated: SGOT, CPK (very high), direct bilirubin, & blood glucose. The SGPT is normal as are BUN and Creatinine. The remedy which cured this cat was Bryonia 30c given as single pellets on a four hourly schedule for four doses (until response evident). Let’s start with a workup of the case using the Kent repertory. Analysis from the Kent Repertory We see that Bryonia is definitely in the top group for consideration. There are seven remedies that are similar enough to be in all of the rubrics chosen for the analysis. So it would not be difficult with a quick perusal of the materia medica (if even necessary) to choose Bryonia out of this group. Just for comparison we can see the greater challenge if we were to use the Complete Repertory instead of Kent’s. Analysis from the Complete Repertory Here we still have Bryonia in the second position but now the remedies for consideration has increased to 13. Doable, but more work. Lastly, here is the analysis in the Boger/Boenninghausen repertory. Analysis from the Boenninghausen Repertory Bryonia clearly is at the top of the list and the only remedy that is in all rubrics. Note that this analysis started with the “inflammatory fever” but then drew on two modalities from the Fever section as well as one concomitant (shrieking, crying out). So you can see here how the method of generalized modalities and concomitants is used.

Summary

In closing, here is a suggested way to use the New World Veterinary Repertory.

  • Identify the focus of the condition in your patient. Use that location as your base for starting your analysis. The “location” need not be an anatomical region, it could be a function such as fever in the example case above.
  • Then bring in the modalities and the concomitants that you have available. Use them to narrow the grouping of remedies for consideration.
  • If there is not a corresponding modality in the repertory section you are focusing on, then use modalities from the Generals section.
  • Use few rubrics in your analysis. The more rubrics you use, the more likely the remedy needed will be lost in the listings.
  • The important symptoms to use are those that are intense (especially in acute conditions), that are persistent or recurrent (in chronic conditions), or are unusual in some way — either by appearance or in association with the rest of the case.
  • If you do not have the information needed — the modalities, concomitants, the generals — then pick the one rubric that most accurately characterizes the chief complaint. Assume it is highly likely that the remedy you need is in that list. Then work with the list by adding one other symptom, one that is affecting a different region or function. See if that more clearly defines the remedy choices. You may need to add a second rubric, delete it, add another — back and forth until you are satisfied.
  • In some very difficult cases, there is no other option than considering carefully every remedy in the one rubric list. It does help, in the chronic cases, to limit remedy considerations to those suitable for chronic disease. This can bring the remedies under consideration to a reasonable number.  In the “Pitcairn Package” for MacRepertory that analysis choice of limiting to Hahnemann’s and Boenninghausen’s list of remedies suitable for treatment of the chronic miasmatic conditions is already included in your setup, so it is easy to toggle back and forth between “all remedies” and “chronic remedies.”

So what we have is the first truly edited veterinary repertory, worked from the ground up, with the intention it would be of the most practical usefulness to those working with animals. It will serve you well to practice using it with some cases for which you already know the curative remedy. That way you can try various approaches in analysis, using different rubrics, and gain some familiarity with how cases are worked out with this approach. Good luck with using this repertory. I think you will find it both interesting and very useful.

 Steps in the Repertory’s Construction

— Wendy Jensen, DVM This repertory was constructed on the backbone of Boenninghausen’s Characteristics Materia Medica & Repertory as created by C.M. Boger. This repertory emphasizes concomitants, aggravations, and ameliorations of symptoms, which we have found to be the most reliable guide to the curative remedy in veterinary patients. The first step was to remove all the rubrics from Boger’s repertory that were not applicable to veterinary patients. This included many mental rubrics such as types of dreams, mental constructs such as thinking that things look beautiful, and so forth, as well as physical symptoms impossible to elicit in the non-verbal patient, such as types of pain, sensations, headaches, the taste of expectorated material, and many many others.

Added Rubrics

The next step was to add in all the applicable rubrics from Kent’s Repertory of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica, Jahr’s New Manual of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica, and finally Boger’s Synoptic Key. This step often required updating rubrics with remedies found in these references but not present in Boenninghausen’s repertory, as well as adding rubrics not found in Boenninghausen. A few useful rubrics were also formulated and added with the help of ReferenceWorks. The materia medica used for these searches included Hering’s, Allen’s, Hughes’ Cyclopedia, Allen’s Nosodes, Anshutz’s New, Old, and Forgotten Remedies, and Hahnemann’s Materia Medica Pura and his Chronic Diseases. Useful rubrics from Schwartz’s Wound Repertory were also added.

Corrections

During this work we discovered many inconsistencies in the order of rubrics in the original sources. These were corrected and standardized for ease of navigation through the repertory. Finally the language was changed from the human body part to the analogous non-human anatomical location, such as “ankle” to “hock,” “wrist” to “carpus,” and “arm” to “foreleg.” Menses was described as Estrous (reproductive cycle). Definitions were also added to clarify older terminology or technical terms. For the last step, extensive cross references were added, and existing ones were refined to quickly guide the user to potentially more similar rubric choices for their cases.

Results

The result of this painstaking work over a period of three years is a precise and exacting tool for the busy veterinary practitioner. This repertory would also be applicable to human non-verbal patients, such as infants or adults unable to communicate due to a mental condition such as schizophrenia or coma.

 Biography

Dr. Wendy Jensen is a licensed veterinarian who has been practicing 100% homeopathy since 1992. She received her veterinary degree from the New York State College of Veterinary Medicine in 1987 and completed Dr. Richard Pitcairn’s Professional Course in Veterinary Homeopathy before being certified by the Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy (AVH) in 1994.  Dr. Jensen served on the initial expanded board for the AVH. She has published numerous articles in holistic health magazines for animals as well as in the JAVH, for which she was the Executive Editor for its first 12 years in publication. She has lectured for the AVH, the Homeopathic Medical Society for the State of Pennsylvania, various breed clubs, schools, homeopathic study groups, and health organizations. She has taught for the Professional Course, and has been a mentor on the Course’s email listserve for over three years.