Bœnninghausen's Characteristics and Repertory

BŒNNINGHAUSEN'S

Characteristics and Repertory.

TRANSLATED, COMPILED AND AUGUMENTED BY C. M. BOGER, M. D.

WITH A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF BŒNNINGHAUSEN'S LIFE BY T. L. BRADFORD, M. D.

PARKERSBURG, W. VA. 1905.

COPYRIGHT BY C. M. BOGER, 1905.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

DR. C. VON BŒNNINGHAUSEN.

ONE of the most noteworthy of the early practitioners of Homœopathy was Clemens Maria Franz, Baron von Bœnninghausen, who was born on March 12, 1785, on the ancestral estate of Heringhaven in Overyssel in the Netherland. His family was of the oldest nobility of Westphalia. At the age of twelve years he entered the high school at Münster, remaining for six years, when he entered the Dutch University of Gröningen, where for three years he attended the lectures upon law, natural history and medicine. He received the degree of Doctor utrinsque juris on August 30, 1806, and in October of the same year was appointed lawyer at the Supreme Court at Deventer.

In 1807 he accompanied his father who went as Electoral Representative from Overyssel to Utrecht to the Court of Louis Napoleon. He was made Auditor of the Privy Council and within a year Auditor to the King and a fortnight afterwards Secretary General. He was also appointed Royal Librarian and Chief of the Topographical Bureau. He remained in Holland until the resignation of the King on July 1, 1810. He then returned to his home and devoted himself to the study of agriculture and botany. He married in 1812 and removed to his hereditary estate of Darup. He soon entered into correspondence with the most prominent agriculturists of Germany and published several pamphlets upon agriculture. He was instrumental also in establishing the Agricultural Society for the District of Münster. In 1816 he became President of the Provincial Court of Justice for Westphalia in Coesfield, which position he retained until 1822. About this time he became one of the Commissioners for the registration of lands and his constant travels gave him ample opportunity to study the Flora of Rhineland and Westphalia and he published a book on the subject: "Prodromus Floræ Monasteriensis." He became Director of the Botanical Gardens of Münster, retaining this position for several years, and received much distinction from his botanical writings. In 1827 a serious derangement of his health occurred and two celebrated physicians decided that he had purulent tuberculosis. In 1828, when all hopes of recovery had been abandoned, he wrote a letter of farewell to an old botanical friend, Dr. A. Weihe, of Hervorden, who was the first homœopathic physician in the provinces of Rhineland and Westphalia, though Bœnninghausen had only known him as an enthusiastic botanist. Weihe, distressed at the news, wrote asking for a detailed description of the disease and expressed a hope that he might by means of a newly discovered method in medicine be able to cure his friend, Bœnninghausen. Under Dr. Weihe's treatment Bœnninghausen was entirely cured and became not only a firm believer in Homœopathy, but its active missionary. He revived his former knowledge of medicine and began to practice. But he had no license to practice as a physician and for this reason he devoted himself to literary labors upon subjects connected with Homœopathy. Most of the systematic works written by Bœnninghausen concerning Homœopathy were published between 1828 and 1846. He was at this time a constant contributor to the Archiv fur Homœopathische Heilkunst and the Allgemeine Homœopathische Zeitung. On account of his great learning King Wilhelm IV., on July 11, 1843, issued a Cabinet order bestowing upon Bœnninghausen all the rights and immunities of a practicing physician.

Bœnninghausen was a valued correspondent with Hahnemann, Stapf, Gross, Mühlenbein, Weihe and other notables of the homœopathic school and was held in high esteem by all of them. In 1848 he was largely instrumental in establishing the Homœopathic Society of Rhineland and Westphalia. He also was made member of nearly all the existing homœopathic societies; the Western Homœopathic Medical College, in Cleveland, in 1854, gave him an honorary diploma; the Emperor of France appointed him a Knight of the Legion of Honor on April 20, 1861. He had seven sons, the elder of whom married the adopted daughter of Madame Hahnemann.

Bœnninghausen for many years lived in Münster. He received patients daily from nine to two o'clock from two to five he spent in walking about the suburbs and in the Botanical Gardens. He lived to attain the age of seventy-nine years, dying of apoplexy on January 26, 1864.

No one man, except Hahnemann, has left so deep an impress upon the literature of Homœopathy, or has exerted so great an influence in favor of the Homœopathy taught by Hahnemann, as Bœnninghausen. His Therapeutic Pocket Book, first published in 1846, has been a guide to many, and other of the works of his scholarly pen have also been held in demand by the believers in pure Homœopathy. He devoted himself especially to presenting the Materia Medica so that the chief characteristics of each remedy might be thoroughly understood by the practitioner and his writings are mostly devoted to that object. The great literary work of his life was probably his editorship of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates with the Glosses of a Homœopathist, which was published in 1863.

Bœnninghausen adopted and practiced the three precautionary rules as laid down by Hahnemann in his practice, and his success in practice, his lucid exposition of homœopathic Materia Medica and the integrity of his writings have endeared him to all who believe that the law of the similars is the real law by which the sick can be made well.

T. L. BRADFORD.

May 10, 1905.

PREFACE.

IT gives me great pleasure to be able to present the essentials of the masterpieces of Bœnninghausen, condensed into one volume, to the profession. The "THERAPEUTIC POCKET BOOK" is easily the foremost of these; an annotated copy presented by the author to the late Dr. Carrol Dunham later became the property of Dr. H. N. Guernsey and is now in the possession of his son, Dr. Joseph C. Guernsey, whose courtesy enables me to incorporate it in its entirety in the present work.

The Materia Medica part consists of the "Characteristics," now translated as such for the first time, the "Whooping Cough," the "Domestic Physician," therapeutic hints gleaned from the "Aphorisms of Hippocrates," and the symptom text of the "Intermittent Fever." For purposes of comparison the "Allied Remedies" are added at the end of each remedy; they were the result of long years of observation on the part of Bœnninghausen and largely supplemented the "Concordances." It has been my aim to arrange and sift the matter in a way that would avoid all needless repetition, as well as to render the most expressive sentences as accurately as possible, while preserving their essential meaning. The periodic homœopathic literature of Bœnninghausen's time contains many communications from him and large numbers of hints from this source have been incorporated in the text.

In order to enhance the value of a book intended for ready reference, I have thought it best to add the following remedies: Aloes, Apis, Argentum nitricum, Borax, Bromium, Calcarea phosphorica, Fluoricum acidum, Gelsemium, Glonoinum, Kali bichromicum, Kreosotum, Mercurius corrosivus, Natrum sulphuricum, Phytolacca, Podophyllum, Psorinum and Tabacum. These, in a very considerable measure, represent the advance in our Materia Medica since Bœnninghausen passed away.

The Repertory embraces the "Pocketbook," the "Apsoric" and the "Antipsoric" repertories, the "Sides of the Body," the repertory part of the "Intermittent Fever" and of "Whooping Cough," as well as a large number of paragraphs from the "Aphorisms of Hippocrates." Properly designated additions have been made from the exigencies of daily practice, but no clinical symptoms have been thus admitted.

ON THE USE OF REPERTORIES.

A Repertory is essentially an index and may be advantageously used as such for discovering particular symptoms as well as for grouping remedies containing similar combinations in their pathogeneses. The latter, as it insures an unique comprehensiveness of grasp, is by far its most important use. Such groups are often large, and when so, are necessarily thinned out by eliminating all the remedies which lack the essential, general and special-regional-Conditions. It should be borne in mind that the Conditions, especially if regional, are apt to modify almost any symptom that the remedy may possess. This subject is further elucidated by the following article which is abridged from an article entitled "A Critical Review of the Value of Symptoms," published by Bœnninghausen in the Allgemeine Homœopathische Zeitung, Vol. LX., page 73.

CHOOSING THE REMEDY.

Hahnemann, in § 152, of the Organon, gives explicit directions for its selection; he tells us how the choice should be made from among the drugs which exhibit effects simulating those of the whole disease picture at hand and shows how the final differentiation depends upon the individualistic or peculiar symptoms. A truly scientific procedure.

The interpretation of what constitutes a striking or singular symptom, except as pointed out in § 86 and the following, is left to the judgment of the physician, but is elucidated in the following seven considerations:

1. Changes of personality and temperament are particularly to be noted, especially when striking alterations, even if rare, occur; the latter often supplant or by their prominence may obscure the physical manifestations and consequently correspond to but few remedies. Taking written notes† of every case gradually drills the mind into recognizing types (personalities) and their corresponding remedies.

The expressions of the intellectual and moral proclivities are inter-dependent and their combined character affords the best and almost sole indication in the choice of remedies for mental affections.

2. It is self evident that the nature and peculiarities of disease, as well as the virtues of drugs, must be thoroughly known before we can hope to give practical aid in sickness. The homœopath soon realizes that for him everything in medicine is generalized too much; the most diverse diseases needing quite different remedies are designated by a common title which excludes every precise indication that might lead to the most suitable remedy, hence he can make only a limited use of diagnosis. For the same reason every allopath orders a different medicine or mixes his drugs to cover the various indications.

The most accurate and indubitable diagnosis of a disease form as depicted in pathological (allopathic) treatises can seldom or never suffice for the sure selection of the similar (homœopathic) remedy in a concrete case. It can, at most, but not invariably, serve to exclude from the comparison all medicines which do not correspond to the nature of the disease, but which on the contrary seem to expend themselves upon other parts of the living organism.

3. The seat of the disease frequently points to the decisive indication, for almost every drug acts more definitely upon certain parts of the organism, the whole body seldom being affected equally, even in kind; differences occur in the so-called local disease, as well as in the affections designated as general; such are gout and rheumatism. At times the right, then again the left side suffers more, or the pains may appear diagonally, etc., etc.

The amount of attention to be given to the affected part is necessarily proportioned to the magnitude of the general illness of which it is a portion. Such general terms, therefore, as headache, toothache, bellyache, etc., even when the nature of the pain is expressed, cannot contribute even the least towards a rational choice of the remedy.

It is essential to ascertain the seat of the local disease with accuracy; for every experienced homœopath knows how, in toothache for instance, it is necessary to select the remedy which in its provings has repeatedly acted upon the very tooth that suffers. The specific curative power of Sepia in those stubborn and sometimes fatal joint abscesses of the fingers and toes is extraordinarily conclusive evidence upon this point, for they differ from similar gatherings in location only, while the remedies so suitable for abscess elsewhere remain ineffectual here.

Had the niceties of physical diagnosis of our times been known during the age of

† See Organon, § 104.

Hahnemann he would doubtless have localized his remedies more accurately than merely giving such vague designations, as above, below, right or left, etc. It would become our contemporaries infinitely better to fill up these gaps than to keep on repeating well known symptoms or discovering others which are almost invariably of no importance.

In the treatment of disease the value of modern methods is far less therapeutic than prognostic. The internal physical signs and objective material changes never represent the dynamic disease, but are its product, developing as it progresses. When, as is often possible, such disorganizations can be nipped in the bud by well selected remedies it is unpardonable to await their appreciable ravages. This is equally true of homœopathic prophylaxis.

4. In finding the similimum for the whole case the concomitants, above all, demand the most thorough examination. While carefully elucidated characteristics strikingly portray the leading features of a case they are always modified by the peculiarities of the relief before the picture can be said to be accurate. Common-place or well known accompaniments are unimportant unless they are present in an extraordinary degree or appear in a singular manner.

We must, therefore, examine carefully all those accessory symptoms which are:

(A). Rarely found combined with the main affection, hence also infrequent under the same conditions in the provings.

(B). All those belonging to another sphere of disease than that of the main one.

(C). Finally those which bear the distinctive marks of some drug, even if they have never before been noted in the preceding relation.

A concomitant may so distinctly and decidedly depict the nature of a drug, and consequently indicate it, as to acquire an importance far outranking the symptoms of the main disease; it then points to the most suitable medicine. Such symptoms above all others evidently belong to those which Hahnemann called striking, extraordinary, and peculiar (characteristic) and are to receive our almost exclusive attention because they lend their individuality to the totality. A number of efficient and partly specific remedies for various disorders are almost solely discoverable from among them because the disease symptoms proper, for lack of peculiarities, offer no possible assistance in the choice. The system of concomitants also makes Homœopathy distinctly safer, rendering it less dependent upon a previously constructed diagnosis which is often deceptive.

5. The cause. Pathological explanations and speculations are too far removed from our entirely practical method to have any great value in a therapy and cure. Diseases are logically divided into internal and external. The former arise from the natural disposition, which is sometimes highly susceptible (idiosyncrasy). The latter can excite disease principally by means of external impressions, when there is already a natural predisposition thereto.

The modified natural tendency to disease depends, according to Hahnemann, upon the uneradicated miasms of psora, syphilis and sycosis. When it does not originate in these it is mostly composed of remnants and sequels of the acute affections which so largely go to make up drug diseases and poisonings; but we not infrequently see both factors combine to undermine the health, thus presenting a proportionately deeper rooted disease just that much harder to combat. In such cases antipsoric remedies very much excel all others in efficacy. (The scrofulous diathesis—psora—is constantly being extended by the practice of vaccination; our view of the matter receives confirmation from the fact that in very many cases of such diseases which are essentially acute in character it is only by the administration of our so-called antipsoric remedies that rapid and durable cures can be effected). Preface to Whooping Cough.

Whether or not we believe the psoric theory, the fact remains that the best selected remedy is often ineffectual unless preceded by the proper antipsoric, antisycotic or antisyphilitic, as the case may be, but because of their almost identical symptom lists it is generally chosen with difficulty by differentiating and searching out the few true characteristics.

Drug diseases and poisonings do not differ in their health destroying power. The drug given should be ascertained and properly antidoted. Simple poisons are easily detected by their effects, but a drug disease is generally a compound result which fails to show a clear and accurate picture, hence a knowledge of the contents of former prescriptions taken is a necessity and lightens the labor.

Practice has extracted and rendered the anamnesic symptoms easy of access, thus greatly restricting the list from which the selection is to be made, so that attention to but a few characteristics quickly determines an accurate choice. This is especially true of sprains, bruises, burns, etc. Colds are more complicated, because of the diverse manner in which they are contracted and the different parts which they affect point to different remedies; for instance, it makes a great difference whether they are contracted while sweating, by exposure of a part, being drenched all over or partly, etc. Various remedies must be considered according to whether the symptoms localize themselves internally (stomach, chest, abdomen, etc.), or externally (head, feet, back, etc.). Such remedies are not to be too readily thrown aside unless certainly found dissimilar in other respects.—So much depends upon a knowlege of the cause (Anamnesis) of disease, that without it the choice of a homœopathic remedy cannot be made with safety: Aphorisms of Hippocrates, VII., 12.

Homœopathic prophylactics are tested and sure. The very remedies which cure the fully developed diseases will protect exposed persons. This is very important for the reason that incipient diseases are generally very lacking in the characteristics which determine the choice.

6. The Modalities are the proper and most decisive modifiers of the characteristics, not one of which is utterly worthless, not even the negative ones. They have developed in importance with the growth of Homœopathy.

A superficial examination of any completely proven drug will reveal the common symptoms of all diseases, such as headache, bellyache, diarrhœa, eruptions, etc., etc. A little closer inspection of their sensations and relations to the different parts of the body establishes undoubted differences in the manner of their appearance, the modality. All experienced homœopaths pay great attention to this point. It is self evident that the modality must be specialized; it is not sufficient, for instance, to note the general effect of motion in a given case, but the various kinds of motion, and whether they arise during continued or at the start of movement must be known. Likewise, the general effect of position, such as lying on the side, back, crosswise, horizontally, etc., as well as the special discomfort or ease caused from lying on the painful or painless side, must be elicited in order to apply the most suitable remedy.

The cravings and aversions to various foods furnish some of the most important points in deciding upon the remedy.

When the symptoms seem to point out a particular remedy with which the modalities, however, do not agree, it is only negatively indicated and the physician has the most urgent reasons to doubt its fitness; he should, therefore, seek for another having the same symptoms.

7. The time is hardly less important than the aggravation and amelioration itself and could be of great use were the different stages of disease left undisfigured by drug influences,

for they constantly produce the most devious effects upon the natural course of disease. I hope no one will say that periodicity necessarily indicates Cinchona (Quinine), for there is hardly a single homœopath who has not treated numerous victims of this error. This homœopathic objective concerns two points which have a direct bearing upon the choice of the remedy.

A. The periodical return of the symptoms after a shorter or longer period of quiescence.

B. The hour of the day when they are better or worse.

The former coincides with epochs having special, accidental causes, such as menstrual disturbances, all seasonal or temperatural influences, etc. Where it is impossible to discover such secondary causes, or where, as is usually the case, their time of recurrence is not more accurately designated they have no value for homœopaths because they are lacking in precise indications.

The general or special modalities referable to the time of day are of much greater importance, for hardly any disease lacks this feature and the provings supply the same peculiarity, qualifying them for the best and most comprehensive uses. To illustrate this we need only refer to influences which the time of day exerts upon coughs, diarrhœas, etc. A considerable list of remedies exhibit typically recurrent effects, unless these are clear and decided (like Hell. and Lycopod. at 4–8 P. M.), or return at exactly the same hour (Ant. c., Ign., Saba.), they are unimportant.

(In general, the tyro in Homœopathy cannot too earnestly take to heart the caution to avoid the great error of regarding a numerically large mass of symptoms that are general in their character, but do not individualize the case, as a sufficient guide in choosing the remedy. The keen perception and appreciation of those symptoms, which, at the same time, correspond to the nature of the disease and also designate the remedy which is exclusively or at least most decidedly indicated—this alone betokens the master mind. For it is easier—very much easier—to select the right remedy after a picture of the disease, complete in every respect and fully meeting all requirements, has been drawn up, than to obtain the materials for such a picture and construct it for oneself.) From the Preface of the Whooping Cough.

THE REPETITION OF THE DOSE.

Medicines, by proper (higher) potentization, develop a continually widening, quicker and more radical sphere of action which stretches far beyond all pathological forms but never outgrows their own true characteristics. This should, however, not lead us into straining at conclusions and making blind applications of this postulate.

A single dose of the properly selected homœopathic remedy will in a short time so transform the character of a disease as to cause it to show indications for a different remedy. The common experience that the continued thoughtless and injudicious use of the same medicine often does more harm than good, and that two very similar remedies do not follow each other well, has its origin in this fact.

The primary and secondary action of many drugs repeats itself alternately, hence, as long as this happens, the one (first) dose has not exhausted its action.

In diseases like small-pox, scarlet fever, etc., which generally attack man only once, every repetition, particularly of the higher dynamizations, only tends to prejudice or retard the cure, whereas, in other diseases it regulates itself by the extent of their liability to recur.

In every attack, one minute dose of the rightly chosen remedy, if allowed to quietly

expend itself, not only accomplishes everything to be expected of medicine, but when the same drug is, after a long time, again given, as evidently the most applicable remedy even for another disease, it disappoints us, and will only act after a sufficient time has elapsed for the former dose to have finished its work.

In chronic disease the action of the truly legitimate (similar) remedy must be left undisturbed if we wish to attain success.

External manifestations are in nowise indispensable to the existence of chronic disease; on the contrary, the more the external (vicarious) symptoms are disturbed or repressed, the deeper do they take root and flourish internally. It follows from the dynamic nature and constitution of every real disease that it is never purely local, but always finds its genesis in the immaterial life force, therefore in the whole living organism, and can only be rooted out as fast as the increasing vital reaction displaces the primary drug action; most rapidly towards the end. Abstracted from the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, VII., 12.

In conclusion it may not be useless to call to memory, in an abridged form, what my worthy friend, Dr. J. Aegidi, says in the Archive of Homœopathy (XII., I., 121), which coincides entirely with my own experience. After the administration of the carefully selected (according to the similarity of the symptoms) remedy, as early, at the latest, as after the lapse of eight days (in acute sickness often already after a few hours), one of two events certainly follows either.

A. The state of the illness is changed, or

B. It remains the same.

A change in the sick condition embraces three events, either

1st. The condition is ameliorated,

2d. It is aggravated, or,

3d. The disease alters its symptom complex.

In the first case one sees the medicine's beneficial action penetrating deeply and it were, therefore, hasty not to wait the fullest extent of the amelioration. Here, at least, haste is useless, mostly harmful, and only then, when the improvement comes to a visible standstill, is it advisable to give a second, third or fourth dose of the same remedy, especially, however, only as long as a lessening, but not essentially changed symptom complex still points to it.

In the second event we see the state of the sickness becoming worse; particularly do the characteristic symptoms heighten their intensity without changing or transposing themselves, the so-called homœopathic aggravation. Here the remedy has overcome the affection in its essence and for a while nothing further is to be done unless perhaps entirely too important complaints make the application of a proper antidote necessary, which on most occasions is found in a second, and, if possible, still smaller dose of the same medicine.

The third instance concerns an alteration of the symptom complex and is evidence when this happens that the remedy was not fittingly chosen and must be exchanged for a suitable one as soon as possible.

When, notwithstanding, the carefully chosen remedy and the patient's faultless diet, the sick condition, on the contrary, is not at all changed, as in the case mentioned under B, the cause usually lies in want of receptivity, which we must seek to remove either by repeated small doses or by medicines recommended for deficient reaction.

By following these rules we have the pleasure of assisting the sick to recovery in an incomparably shorter time than has commonly been possible under the former evil treat-

ment where the physician lacked a fixed rule of practice.—From the Preface of the Antipsoric Repertory.

The repetition of the dose is determined by the nature and force of the response elicited; this response reveals the actual status of the patient in proportion to the accuracy of the prescription. The speed of the reaction is naturally governed by the course of the individual affection plus the vital reactive power of the individual. Hence, it follows that a quick relief in chronic disease bodes no good, if the remedy has been properly chosen.

No second dose should be given as long as the relief progresses, even though slightly. The amelioration is apt to show itself in the mental state first; the mind becomes more tranquil and the suffering is more easily borne, although its intensity may as yet not be lessened.

In a real cure the symptoms recede from above downward, from within outward and in the reverse order of their coming; all other ways are irregular and open to the suspicion of being mere palliations calculated to destroy the natural symmetry of the manifestations, hence to complicate and render the disease intractible.

THE HOMŒOPATHIC PROGNOSIS.

Homœopaths, besides knowing all that the allopaths do of diagnosis, possess the most trustworthy signs derived from the behavior of the remedy.

Experience teaches that whenever the quite correctly and fittingly chosen remedy is applied and operates within the sphere corresponding to its action, hence excites the necessary reaction, the overthrow of the disease is naturally to be expected. If, on the contrary, the reaction remains absent or symptoms, which are foreign thereto, appear during the operation of the drug, the prognosis is most grave, even if not apparently so.

In order to profit by examples of such phenomena it is absolutely necessary to have an accurate knowledge of the powers of every medicine, even down to their finest shades of difference, as well as to see to it that only one remedy is administered at a time. Aphorisms of Hippocrates, II., 19; also I., pages 12-13.

The signs used in this work are:

The * (an asterisk) used to designate paragraphs from the Pocket Book as altered by the Dunham copy.

The † (a dagger) used to mark new paragraphs whose introduction, it is hoped, will help in the selection of the similimum.

The ′ (a prime, a small apostrophe-like mark set after an abbreviation) is attached to single abbreviations and indicates that the remedy so marked has been inserted as a true pathogenetic symptom.

This work is now introduced to the profession with the hope that it will be found an ever ready aid in finding the most similar remedy; such I have found it to be, and I am anxious that my professional brethren shall share its benefits with me. That it is either entirely exhaustive of the subject or perfect I do not claim, but that it is a help of no mean value I am certain.

C. M. BOGER.

Parkersburg, W. Va., June 15, 1905.