New World Homeopathic Veterinary Repertory
The following text has been written by Richard Pitcairn, one of the authors of the repertory.
A modern homeopathic repertory adapted for animal patients, based on Boger-Boenninghausen’s Repertory, with valuable additions from Kent and many others
The very first repertory designed exclusively for veterinary use. Of the more than 110 repertories published over the last two centuries*, this is the first that has been carefully constructed to be of special application to veterinary practice. Until now, veterinarians practicing the homeopathy of Hahnemann have used the repertories designed for human beings – Kent’s, Boenninghausen’s Therapeutic Pocketbook, Boger edition of Boenninghausen’s repertory, The Synthetic Repertory, etc. These are excellent repertories for human use but can be a challenge to veterinarians for two reasons.
1. They contain large amounts of information, such as sensations, types of pains, and specific locations, that only humans can communicate.
2. Some of the most common non-human conditions are either minimally presented or completely absent from existing repertories.
Veterinarians Richard Pitcairn and Wendy Jensen, together with over 55 years’ experience in exclusively homeopathic practices, bring their knowledge of animal conditions and the correspondingly most applicable rubrics to this unparalleled reference work. The Boenninghausen repertory, edited by Boger, was the foundation for the work because of its emphasis on physical conditions and its skillful use of modalities and concomitants that are so necessary in veterinary work. After editing out the non-applicable material, rubrics especially helpful in animal cases were added or enlarged – primarily from Kent’s repertory, but also from other sources including Jahr, Boger, Allen, Hering and Boericke. Extensive cross references were also added to make the discovery of the most similar rubric much easier than ever before.
This work, the first of its type, will greatly enhance every homeopathic veterinarian’s satisfaction and success in practice.
* Source: Robin Murphy. “Designing A New Repertory”, The Journal of The Homeopathic Academy of Naturopathic Physicians, Fall 1993, Vol. VI, No. 3, page 22.
“I have been using the New World Repertory on a daily basis. Modeled after the Boenninghausen repertory, the NWR is similarly focused on physical symptoms, with the addition of rubrics specific to animal problems. Initially I thought it would just be applicable to my animal patients but have found it to be more concise and less bulky than many repertories, making it my first choice when initially repertorizing a case, be it animal or human. This repertory is a must for anyone who treats animals with homeopathy!” Julie Matthews, DVM, CVA, CVH , York Maine
“I refer to your new repertory daily in my busy practice, and it has become my default reference when solving cases. Thanks to Richard and Wendy for all the labor involved in producing this great and useful tool for us to apply in practice.” Dr Todd Cooney DVM, CVH , Certified Veterinary Homeopath, Kokomo Indiana
“The NWVR has been invaluable in my homeopathic veterinary casework for both acute and chronic prescribing. This repertory is tailored for veterinary use by including applicable descriptive rubrics for symptoms we’d most likely see in our animal patients. Another helpful tool are the extensive cross references and inclusion of concomitants that can help refine an obscure symptom.” Marybeth Minter, DVM , Sedona
“I’ve been using this repertory since it came out a few years back, but in the digital version. It was carefully written from great source material on a great backbone (Boger-Boenninghausen, primarily), and painstakingly cleared of rubrics that are of no use to me in my animal patients. I can’t know anything about sensations, for example, because I can’t ask my patient what something feels like.
Drs. Pitcairn and Jensen painstakingly searched several reliable references to be sure that rubrics chosen were of clinical utility in animal work. Practitioners themselves, their bent was to make this repertory eminently useful.
The result is a finely honed, well organized tome that saves the busy practitioner time in his work, while broadening his understanding of what symptoms may apply to his case. The extensive cross references help me find rubrics that more accurately describe what I’m seeing in my animal patients.
I’m very happy to see the finely made hard bound version now, printed on high quality paper with section indents for easy access.” Veterinär Homöopath Dr. Will Falconer
How often is there something really new brought out? There is now! For the very first time there is a repertory that has been carefully edited specifically for veterinary use. Dr. Wendy Jensen and Dr. Richard Pitcairn, together with 55 years of practical experience using homeopathy exclusively in the treatment of animals, have made a reference work you must have on your shelf.
Using the Boger-Boenninghausen repertory as a foundation, because this repertory is the most applicable to animal work, careful editing and additions from Kent’s repertory and other sources have honed a tool both practical and very effective to use in practice.
The repertory was constructed in several stages. The first step was to remove all rubrics which could not be applied to animal patients, such as those relating to sensations or inner mental activities such as dreams and delusions. Then useful rubrics were added from Kent, Jahr, Boger, and Schwartz’s Wound Repertory. Oftentimes Kent contained similar rubrics but had many more remedies, so these were added to the rubrics in Boenninghausen. The next step was to change the language to reflect quadruped anatomy, such as replacing ankle with hock and wrist with carpus. Finally, the cross references, which suggest rubrics with similar meanings, were greatly expanded, so that the busy practitioner could at a glance find the rubric with the best fit for the patient at hand.
The strategy for a veterinary repertory
Homeopathy is tremendously successful in the treatment of animals and has the added benefit of showing that the effect is not placebo. Finding the remedy for an animal patient is somewhat difficult, however. We are dealing with a patient that cannot communicate with us in the usual way. We can observe, examine physically, ask for information from their human companions, but it is not possible to obtain any information as to sensations, or the locations of these sensations. As an example we may observe a dog limping and careful examination may show us it is in the right front leg. Perhaps we can narrow down to a joint, the elbow, but we cannot determine the type of pain, its location, or if the pain extends to other areas.
We run into the same issue with mental or emotional symptoms. We can assume a general interpretation — perhaps that the aggressive dog is angry, but it really is a guess. We see how difficult to accurately interpret human behavior and therefore how unlikely we can accurately do that with the non-verbal animal.
There are also functional changes, like abdominal complaints, which if a human patient, could defined as in the area of the stomach, or the pancreas, but in the animal we have to be satisfied with more general “abdominal.”
What repertory?
With these restrictions in mind one can see that the strategy for working with an animal has to be modified from the usual human orientation. From this viewpoint, the question is what is the best repertory to use as a reference. Experience has shown that the method of Bönninghausen is very applicable, this being especially a utilization of the concepts of modality and concomitants. These are observable for us. We can see what seems to relieve the animal — such as seeking cool areas, or reluctance to move. We also observe other changes, the concomitants, what seem to be unrelated symptoms to the main complaint. Emphasizing the method of Bönninghausen is very well presented in the Bönninghausen repertory edited by Cyrus Boger. Boger very skillfully organizes and presents the Bönninghausen method.
Editing the veterinary repertory
We, therefore, used the Boger/Bönninghausen repertory as the foundation and began by removing all the rubrics that could not be determined in animals — the sensations and other details as described above.
The next step was the adding of rubrics or expanding rubrics that from our prior veterinary experience we knew are important ones in animal work. As primary sources we drew on Kent’s repertory, Boger’s Synoptic Key and Jahr’s New Manual. Occasionally other information was taken from Knerr’s repertory, Boericke’s repertory, Hering’s Guiding Symptoms and Allen’s Encyclopedia.
We can summarize this by saying —
1) We simplified the repertory by taking out information not of use to us.
2) We added in, and emphasized, what is of most important to the veterinarian.
Using the repertory
The resulting veterinary repertory became a useful tool in veterinary practice as it makes finding case detail easier. Using the method of Bönninghausen, we emphasize the modalities and concomitants in our analysis, and very often, this allows the finding of the needed remedy.
Using the repertory this way, we have confirmed its usefulness. It allows the efficient use of homeopathy in animal work and, as we hope, will greatly encourage the development of this modality in the treatment of animals.
Kind regards,
The Complete Dynamics development team.
Complete Dynamics & Complete Repertory – The choice of professionals!