A Synoptic Key of the Materia Medica

A SYNOPTIC KEY OF THE MATERIA MEDICA By Cyrus Maxwell BOGER

FOREWORD Correct prescribing is the art of carefully fitting pathogenetic to clinical symptoms, and as such at present requires a special aptness in grasping the essential points of symptom images, great drudgery a mastering a working knowledge of our large Materia Medica or a most skilful use of many books of reference. It is the aim of this book to simplify and introduce method into this work, so that the truly homœopathic curative remedy may be worked out with greater case and certainty. For this purpose a combination of the analytic and synoptic methods has been thought best. The spirit of the clinical symptom picture is best obtained by asking the patient to tell his own story, whenever this is possible. This account is then amplified and more accurately defined by the questioner, who should first try to elicit the evident cause and course of the sickness, to which he will add all the things which now seem to interfere with the sufferer's comfort. Especially should the natural modifiers of sickness -the modalities- be very definitely ascertained. The following are the most vitally important of such influences: Time, Temperature, Open Air, Posture, Being Alone, Motion, Sleep, Eating and Drinking, Touch, Pressure, Discharges, etc. A consideration of the mental state comes next in order of importance. Here the presence of Irritability, Sadness or Fear is the ruling factor. The third step concerns the estimate to be put upon the patient's own description of his sensations. This is a very vital point and in order not to be misled it is always well to ascertain whether any of the following primary sensations are present: Burning, Cramping, Cutting Bursting, Soreness, Throbbing and Thirst. There may be many others, but the presence of any one of these often overshadows them, especially such as may be due to the play of the imagination ; which feature is in itself of more importance than the particular thing imagined. Next in order comes the entire objective aspect or expression of the sickness: This should especially include the Facial Expression, Demeanor, Nervous

Excitability, Sensibility, Restlessness or Torpor, State of the Secretions and any abnormal coloring that may be present. Lastly the part affected must be determined ; this also, brings the investigation in touch with diagnosis. By going over the above rubrics in the order named the contour of the disease picture will be pretty clearly outlined and will point fairly well toward the simillimum, and the prescriber has only to keep in mind the fact that the actual differentiating factor may belong to any rubric whatsoever and also that the scope of these rubrics reaches far beyond the appended synoptic text. For ready reference the following diagram has been arranged: MODALITIES: CAUSATION. TIME. TEMPERATURE. WEATHER. OPEN AIR. POSTURE. MOTION. EATING AND DRINKING. SLEEP. IF ALONE. PRESSURE. TOUCH. DISCHARGES. MIND: IRRITABILITY. SADNESS. FEAR. PLACIDITY. SENSATIONS: BURNING. CRAMPING. CUTTING. BURSTING. SORENESS. THROBBING. THIRST. OBJECTIVE ASPECT: DEMEANOR. RESTLESSNESS. NERVOUS EXCITABILITY. FACIAL EXPRESSION. TORPOR. SECRETIONS. COLOR. ODOR. PART AFFECTED: Organs. Right. Left. THE SYNOPSIS, is intended to make clear the general expression or genius of each remedy, and thereby help the prescriber correct his bearings. The scope of its contents is much enlarged by bracketing the most nearly affiliated remedies after some of the more important symptoms ; this also helps in making differentiations. What often makes a cure hard is the laying of too much stress upon some particular factor at the expense of the disease picture as a whole, thus destroying its symmetry and forming a distorted conception of the natural image of the sickness. This does not, however, mean that all symptoms stand on the same level, for certain effects must be more prominent than others, yet be part and parcel of them. This is the sense in which we must learn to know our remedies, just as we do our

friends, by their air or personality ; an ever changing, composite effect, but always reflecting the same motive. Whenever the chosen remedy excites little or no reaction, the selection has either been faulty, or what is just as likely, one of the fundamental miasms which calls for either Psorinum, Sulfur, Medorrhinum or Syphilinum, is present. Whenever the general benefit derived from a single dose lags, the remedy should be repeated in the next higher potency, instead of looking upon the new symptoms as indicators for some other drug ; for only the most inveterately rooted dyscrasia can, by varying its expression, resist the whole scale of an indicated remedy. Sometimes we can advantageously change to another potency scale of the same remedy, before attempting to scrutinize the remaining picture for those new developments which must point toward our next choice, nor should this successor be chosen until the new symptom picture-disease phase-takes on a fairly definite or settled form. This new fifth edition of the Synoptic Key is herewith submitted to all brothers in the work. Only changes of proven valve in co-ordinating and assembling the significant features of seemingly disassociated symptom groups, have been made. Upon these depends almost wholly the final choice of the simillimum. They should reflect a speaking image, as it were, of the correctly indicated remedy. To this end rubrics from my private files have been freely drawn upon. The symptom features of many remedies have been clarified in order to increase their usefulness, especially in precisionizing differentiations. The Repertory is only intended to orient the searcher. The possibilities that inhere in the contact of the simillimum with the disordered vital force can not be fore-known. It therefore behooves every prescriber to use the utmost care in selecting the curative remedy. It will always remain true, as Paracelsus says in "Erste buch von blatern," chap. 8. 1528. "Just so, Mercury, (etc.), -cures- things Mercuric" only. The strain which runs through every pathogenetic symptom complex has been called the "genius" of the drug. To give this its proper place in the prescription should be the ideal of every prescriber. To this end is this book written. Cyrus Maxwell BOGER, M. D. Parkersburg, W. Va.