The following method was suggested by Boenninghausen, and I used it to great advantage for myself and with my apprentices.

The plan is to establish knowledge of the most important points—the characteristics—of each remedy. The way it is achieved is by comparison and underlining.

COMPARISON: each symptom from the collection of CHARACTERISTICS is looked up in the REPERTORY.
UNDERLINING: if the symptom is found in the REPERTORY, the symptom is underlined in the CHARACTERISTICS.

In Detail:
For this study we took Boenninghausen’s Characteristics, which are printed in: Boger: Boenninghausen’s characteristics and repertory, or are available also in a separate print at a lower cost. We took as a repertory: Boenninghausen’s Therapeutic pocketbook original 1846, where the English students wrote the English titles over the German ones.

We use the following Key for underlining:
Double underlining= fifth grade in the repertory
Single underlining= fourth grade in the repertory
Broken line underlining= third grade.

Example:
Sulphur page 170 Head section
Head:--Congestion from chest to head, with burning heat and gurgling, pulsating pain in brain, throbbing in neck, and cardiac region, diminished hearing and flushes of heat to face.
We have to look up each bit in the REPERTORY:

Head internal: page 9: Sulph in 4th grade—underline Head with pencil single
Congestion: page 140: Sulph in 5th grade – underline congestion twice
Chest: internal page 115: Sulph in 5th grade – underline Chest twice
Head: see above and remember
Burning inner parts: 143, 5th grade—underline Burning twice
Heat inner parts: 283, 3rd grade—underline Heat with a broken line
Gurgling: 156, 3rd grade – underline gurgling with a broken line
Pulsating internal: 172 3rd grade – underline with a broken line
In brain: there is no rubric
Throbbing : 161, 4th grade – underline with single line
Neck: 114, 4th grade -- underline Neck once
Cardiac region: 116, 5th grade – underline Cardiac region twice
Diminished hearing: 29, 5th grade – underline diminished hearing twice
Flushes of heat: 285, 4th grade – underline Flushes of heat once
Face: There is no general rubric for face.

It take quite some time in the beginning to find the things in the repertory, but after a few remedies worked out in this manner, one knows exactly where to find what.
It took at the start about 10-12 hours to go through one remedy in this way, but after a few its down to 2-4 hours.

The same exercise can be done with the proving and the repertory. I did it for most of the antipsorics against the TT. For Sep alone it took me about 30 hours.

Imagine to do it with Synthesis and Allen’s—a lifetime would not be enough to do a few remedies.
Over and all, I found this the quickest way to establish a good working knowledge of the remedies and as a side-effect ended up with a very sharp collection of characteristics and a good knowledge of the repertory. This all helps tremendously in case-taking, because once the main complaints are expressed one knows which remedies are probably necessary and can then ask specific question to establish whether it’s the one or the other by knowing in advance where the remedies for the given case differ.

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Hans Weitbrecht
Consultant Homeopath