Symptom complexes
Until now they were to be found mostly in the bigger materia medicas, T.F. Allen, C. Hering, etc. A symptom complex is a combination of symptoms for a cetain condition, which makes it characteristic for the said remedy (see article: Documentation of Calcarea carbonica). In the Online Repertory the individual symptoms of a complex are marked with a star. On clicking any such symptom the symptom complex can be seen in full.
A symptom complex, if clearly present, leads directly to the indicated remedy
Nosodes, Sarcodes, and Imponderables
In addition to those already to be found in Kent’s Repertory, more than 50 other nososdes, sarcodes, and imponderables, likewise the proven symptoms have been incorporated in the Online Repertory. I personally work with all of them.
Henry C. Allen humbly wrote that if he was at times able to cure conditions, which remained intractable to his colleagues, then it was thanks to the nosodes.
About this Repertory
The Wealth of Experience
Experience does bring with it a kind of knowledge which is worth its weight in gold. In the over 40 years of practical and 30 years of teaching experience I have constantly investigated and proved the value of the known in homoeopathy and added to it what I have gleaned myself. Much of it has been put down in the 30 books and in articles I have written as well as my lectures and seminars and the correspondence course consisting of over 3500 pages. But one of the biggest sources of all this knowledge has been the provings on myself of a large number of remedies, mainly of the already proven ones. Much detail can be gleaned in this way as also from studying the older masters.
An ad-venture of its kind: making it available in one comprehensive library, the Online Repertory.
Well Established
All that is well established in the homoeopathic books and periodicals will be incorporated into the Online Repertory. The first authority known to us will be quoted, except in the case of T.F. Allen, who himself has quoted all the authorities.
That which is already existing in the repertories will be screened and then according to its importance colour-coded.
Unreliable symptoms will be marked by minus signs.
Work In Progress
I am working at the moment with a team of a dozen homoeopaths, who are going through my writings as well as the early authorities. Each and every symptom is checked back to its original authority. Daily new, proven, and only reliable symptoms are put up for the final verification and then put into the online version. All the additions are recognisable from the colour given; the latest additions are found under “New Additions“.
nosode | Ravi Roy | other sources | total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Psor. | 65 | 90 | 155 | |
Med. | 80 | 11 | 91 | |
Syph. | 94 | 75 | 169 | |
Tub. | 295 | 78 | 373 | |
Carc. | 42 | 17 | 59 | |
Ambr. | 19 | 15 | 34 | |
Lyss. | 66 | 18 | 84 | |
Hippoz. | 54 | 3 | 57 | |
Tox. | 31 | 43 | 74 | |
Polio | 57 | 0 | 57 | |
Tet. | 40 | 1 | 41 | |
Diph. | 26 | 24 | 50 | |
Staphyl. | 44 | 25 | 69 | |
Denys | 4 | 24 | 28 | |
Malar. | 7 | 104 | 111 | |
Mag-p-ambo, | 13 | 93 | 106 | |
X-ray | 4 | 32 | 36 | |
Parat-B. | 2 | 30 | 32 | |
Thyr. | 6 | 69 | 75 | |
total: | 949 | 752 | 1701 |
How this Repertory was Born
Thank God one does not really see all that has to be done in the beginning!
More than 30 years passed before the work on this repertory could be truly started. In the year 1974 I did see what needed to be done, but did not know what it meant. That the books and periodicals on homoeopathy in the more important languages had to be sifted through was seemingly clear in my mind. But that the information had to be exactly analysed and minutely scanned was nowhere near any imagination I could have had. It was only after we started with the work that it slowly became clear that nothing, especially from any repertory, could be taken at face value - for the simple reason that no true quality control had ever been done (see article: The Need for a New and Reliable Repertory). When we decided to verify and qualify every single symptom it became clear that the repertories for the purpose of additions were not the first priority.
Further the problem was not in the addition of the already gathered and scanned symptoms, but what is being daily proved in the practice as well as new information gleaned from the literature.
To solve this problem of adding the newly gleaned and making all corrections simultaneously and make it immediately available to you we needed a corresponding programme. That led to birth of the Online Repertory.
Additions by July 15, 2009:
source | additions |
|---|---|
Ravi Roy | 2915 |
outher sources | 8471 |
total | 11386 |
More Certainty in the Selection of the Remedy
There is a nice anecdote about E. B. Nash, the author of Leaders in Homoeopathic Therapeutics. In his early days of practice a patient related a symptom, which Nash knew he had read somewhere but for the life of him he just could not remember where. The thought of this symptom took away his peace of mind and did not let him rest. He decided to read through the materia medica starting with A. Luckily he found the remedy under C, which is still 20% of the remedies.
If the symptom was to have been found in a repertory he would not have had his odyssey. For him it was in a way a blessing because he got to know so much more about these remedies. But with growing knowledge, which too is scattered all over, we may not be as lucky as Nash. As it is the searching for the nuggets, the personal experiences of the author, is an unbelievably slow process. If we want to go beyond the basics we are surprised to find that it has sometimes taken decades of dedicated work to work out the details in a certain field of therapy, e.g. Norton on eyes. Others have followed and built on it, but the works are not known in English, only in German. An incredible number of articles have been written in journals on various disease conditions giving detailed therapeutic indications and never published in book form. Let us take a simple example of Gallavardin. His repertory has been incorporated in many repertories, but so many nuggets are to be found in his cases, which are not to be found in his repertory or his materia medica.
They have been incorporated in the Online Repertory.
New qualitative remedy grading in colour
Symptoms which have been added to the Online Repertory have been given one of the following colours: Magenta, orange, green, or violet. This also means that only quality symptoms have been considered worthy of being added.
It is necessary to make a thorough analysis of a symptom before it is added to a remedy. There are four types of symptoms which are worthy of being considered:
- the essentials
- the very reliable and characteristic
- the verified and
- the analytically logical but not yet properly verified
symptoms.
The colour magenta denotes all symptoms which are the essentials of the remedy. They form the foundation of the remedy and thereby give you the basis for the prescription. Most of the remedies that are new are nosodes. Therefore, at the moment, the majority of the symptoms that are in magenta will be appearing under the nosodes. For the most part the drug pictures of many nosodes are purely clinical and on this basis they have been used in the practice. The main source of their symptoms is Julian’s book on the nososdes. I have been working with a great many nosodes and have been able to verify the general action of these nosodes. This has allowed me to put together much new useful information. In the Online Repertory you will find the essential symptoms I use when making my prescriptions. Also the description of the diseases has been used to work out some of these symptoms.
The colour orange has been given to all the symptoms which have not only been well verified in practice but are also characteristic of the medicine. For this reason, they can be used with certainty. Rubrics in orange are important either because they are very significant or because they will direct you to the correct remedies. Naturally, we have to keep in mind that merely because a number of a patient’s symptoms correspond to some reliable and characteristic symptoms of a remedy does not mean that it is the correct remedy for the patient. Prescriptions must be based on the present pathology of the case. The orange symptoms tell us that this remedy is important and might be required now or in the near future. The colour orange is given only when the author or I myself have verified the symptom clearly.
The colour green is given to those symptoms which have been verified in the practice and the general direction of the medicine is present. Symptoms in green are either of a more general nature and therefore do not belong to the characteristic, needing to be worked out much more, or symptoms in green signify cases when of the characteristic nature not yet verified enough to be put in the category of orange. Many symptoms can be verified but do not have a high value. Therefore, they cannot be orange. In a certain sense, these symptoms still have to prove their worth and the manner in which they fit into the remedy has yet to be, in many cases, worked out. When the general direction of the medicine is already clear, then the symptoms in green can be very valuable in making one’s remedy selection. There may be a number of symptoms which are green and should be orange. But the colour orange is given after much careful evaluation.
The colour violet characterises important symptoms and rubrics which need further verification. Though drug provings form the basis for prescription in the beginning, a drug proving alone does not ensure that all the symptoms are accurate. Thus, in reality, all drugs are initially unverified until they are used in clinical practice and their efficacy is ascertained. Further, though certain specific symptoms may not have come out in the proving, the essence of the medicine can logically show us where the said drug may be of good use. And, the essence of the medicine can be seen in the proving, giving a basis for our analysis. As our knowledge of the essence of a medicine becomes continually clearer and more distinct, even practical use of the medicine will provide more and more violet symptoms. Violet symptoms are in the process of being gradually verified, and though still in a state of development, these symptoms can be very good hints of a remedy’s use in certain cases. A great number of symptoms, especially of nosodes, which were violet for me 20 to 30 years ago have now become orange or magenta. Some still remain violet even though they are in a certain sense verified, but I am not able to get more details out of them. I have noticed, (e.g. with some Silicea violet symptoms) that I have not been able to find out good details regarding feelings, thoughts or situations. It is not enough when the patient only says that he is feeling good or that he could get along better in life. The details do not come out. But sometimes details are combinations of some very "banal" symptoms, which I call symptom complexes.
Most of the symptoms in the Online Repertory are blue because they have to still be screened and checked as to their true value. Still, there are a number of symptoms in the provings which may be useful, but clinically we have no experience with them or the analysis cannot decide with certainty that the symptom can be put in violet. Blue therefore means unknown character but may have its usefulness. Such symptoms when added to the repertory will be given the colour blue.
Comprehensive and Up-to-date
Disease names and medical terms
It is not any easy task to up-date the disease names and medical terms, because homoeopathy has a much broader basis than allopathy. The true meaning of the term has to be preserved. Many terms did have a different meaning and therefore the medicines in the rubrics were not all correct.
Just recently (May 2009) we decided to up-date the rubric "Vaginismus". The meaning in the nineteenth century let the homoeopaths add a great number of medicines, which on looking up in the literature have nothing to do with this condition as we understand it today. Just looking at the sub-rubrics tells us that something is wrong with it. More to this symptom you can look up in the Online Repertory under this rubric!
Better help for the therapy
Continual up-dates from practice and the homoeopathic literature
We strive for a better basis for the homoeopathic therapy of the different disease conditions. This consists of many parts. The most important of which is the reliability of the symptom. This work demands a conscientious scanning of each and every symptom before integrating it in the Online Repertory. But also the existing symptoms have to be verified. This is done on a continual basis. The first chapter we are working on is GENERALITIES. That which is doubtful is marked with one or two minus signs. Our researches for a certain medicine can be viewed on clicking on it.
Even though we are working assiduously on this our high standards of quality makes the progress a slower, but steady one. - The tortoise will reach its goal!
Overall structure simplified and made clear
Rubrics reduced to reliable symptoms. Kent’s logical structure enhanced, modified, and unified. Easy search function.
In all the large rubrics the medicines have been put behind the curtain. They can be viewed on clicking on the rubric. Medicines present in the rubrics in Kent but having no reliability are marked with one or two minus signs. To view the documentation of a certain medicine just click on it.
Kent’s structure has been modified and enhanced. E.g. we have put all the "alternating"-symptoms at the beginning of the subrubrics just after the times of the day. All "as-if"-symptoms have been put at the end before “extending to”.
An overview of the symbols used in the Online Repertory you will find under “Help”.
Available 24 hours a day
Internet access is all you need – no installation necessary.
Ravi Roy's Online Repertory is optimised for Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and higher as also for Mozilla Firefox 3 and higher. We recommend a monitor with a resolution of minimum 1280 x 800 pixels.
International
The data is simultaneously available in English and German.
We work simultaneously on both the German and the English versions. For this reason a high quality in the translation and correspondence of the symptoms is ensured.
You can use the Online Repertory in both languages at the same time. Just click on “change language” at the bottom of the page you are on. Click again to go back to your language of choice.
Invitation
We invite you to be a part of this work! The repertory has been conceived in such a way that anyone can bring in his own proven and reliable experiences. You can give your additions for use to all or you may just view it yourself.
We ask you to send us your experiences with the nosodes, imponderabes, and sarcodes. We will gladly incorporate your good cases with the proven symptoms.