repertory

from his essay The need and use of a repertory
Erastus Case (1847-1918)
- included in an appendix to Some Clinical Experiences of Erastus E. Case

Our Materia Medica is a rich inheritance from the pioneers in Homoeopathy. It includes symptoms obtained by self-sacrificing physicians and their friends in proving remedies, also other symptoms, some of the greatest value, which were removed, or caused by remedies administered to the sick, and recorded by careful observers. Its magnitude, some 300,000 symptoms, appals the student.

The patient, whose condition has been investigated by all the modern scientific methods, has the right to a better chance for cure than is afforded by the knowledge of remedies that any one mind can retain. Hahnemann justly said : “When we have to do with an art, whose purpose is to save human life, any neglect to become master of it becomes a crime”. Through the accumulated labor of many earnest men, we have means for mastering Materia Medica, of finding every symptom it contains for use. The necessity of a repertory is self-evident; the practical use of it deserves consideration.