A review of ‘THE SUMMUM BONUM OF A REPERTORY’ written by Dr Mansoor Ali K R

Dr Mansoor Ali has come with a historical repertory, based exclusively on the Keynotes and Redline symptoms of the Materia Medica, written by Dr Adolph Von Lippe. 

A review of ‘THE SUMMUM BONUM OF A REPERTORY’, written by Dr Mansoor Ali K R, Associate Professor of Repertory, Govt Homeopathic Medical college, Calicut, Kerala, India.

Reviewed by:
Dr Muhammed Rafeeque
Medical officer
Dept. of Homoeopathy
Govt. of Kerala.

Since my college days, Lippe’s Redline Symptoms was one of my favorite books. What impressed me was his style of giving intensity to the indications in materia medica. Now, I am happy to know that Dr Mansoor Ali has come with a historical repertory, based exclusively on the Keynotes and Redline symptoms of the Materia Medica, written by Dr Adolph Von Lippe. 

The dictionary meaning of ‘Summum Bonum’ is the supreme good in which all moral values are included from which they are derived. As the title indicates, it is one good work by Dr Mansoor Ali, who is a known teacher in repertory and has helped many young doctors to achieve high goals through his web portal similima.com and homoeobook.com. So, this authentic work is basically the outcome of his several years study, practice and teaching repertory on various platforms.  I hope that his book will also help not only the young aspirants, but the senior homeopaths as well.

Day by day, our repertories are increasing its size by including new chapters, new rubrics, new remedies etc. It is good to have more information, but the more info we have, the more we get confused, especially when we are in front of a sick patient who is in agony. That is the reason why, Phatak’s repertory is still preferred by many as it has limited rubrics and remedies, that too often verified repeatedly in practice.

So, when I found the Summum Bonum of a Repertory, I felt it like another book useful like Phatak’s repertory. Of course, I can’t say it with surety since I have not read it yet. So let me read it first and review it. I must read it from the introduction part to the last page. The introduction is the main part of a book, but we ignore it, just like the way we ignored the lengthy introduction of Organon of Medicine during our college days.

As per the author, this book is useful for the management of acutes and bedside cases, both for busy practitioners as well as beginners. His intention is not to replace the works of Lippe and the traditional repertories but to find an easy tool that can compliment the exhaustive literature we already have.

The author has given great importance to the details about Dr Lippe, his life and his works in the field of Materia Medica. He has included one article by Lippe, ‘The classification of remedies’ in this book. The ground plan of this book is same as that of Synthesis Repertory. Symptoms are divided in groups and then Side-Time-Modalities-Extension arrangement of Kent. The rubrics are arranged from generals to particulars. There are 32 chapters, from Mind to Generalities. Grading of drugs is given in bold, italics and roman as per the intensity. The information given by other authors are also provided in abbreviations at concerned places.

We have often discussed the disadvantages of traditional repertories such as poor representation of rare remedies, nosodes, sarcodes etc. He has includes 234 remedies, both polycrests as well as rare ones; also includes nosodes and sarcodes. He has also used the modern terminologies, excluding the outdated terms that has less clarity.

A few noteworthy rubrics I found:

  1. Mind – Apologies – Unmoved by: Nit Acid
  2. Vertigo – Labrynthic: Ther
  3. Head – metastasis other organs from: Cupr
  4. Eye- Cellulitis orbital: Rhus tox
  5. Vision – night blindness: Phys
  6. Ear – Catarrh – Eustachian tube: Merc D
  7. Hearing – Crackling – Chewing on: Nit ac
  8. Nose- Epistaxis – frequent: bry, Thlas
  9. Face – Hang down jaws: Op
  10. Mouth – drink greedily: Hell
  11. Teeth – wisdom tooth ailments from: Mag c
  12. Throat – mucus –collection in throat, raised up unable to: Caust
  13. Stomach – thirstlessness – dryness of mouth and throat with: nux m
  14. Abdomen – diarrhea as if would come: Aloe
  15. Rectum – control sphincter control lost: Mur ac
  16. Stool – chopped – spinach: arg n, cham
  17. Urinary organs – Bladder- prolapse: staph
  18. Urinary organs – Kidney – dropsy – renal: apoc
  19. Urinary organs – Prostate – swelling- old men with urging to urinate: staph
  20. Urinary organs – Urethra – constriction: Clem
  21. Urine – Milky – Standing while: cina
  22. Genitalia – Male – Balanitis: Ham
  23. Genitalia – Female – Cancer – cervix: Iod
  24. Larynx – Pain- Talk unable to: phos
  25. Respiration – asphyxia neonatorum: ant t, bov
  26. Cough – anger on: ant t
  27. Expectoration – sweetish: stann
  28. Chest – distress precodial: camph, stront c
  29. Back – softening spinal cord: pic ac
  30. Extremities – Grow, nails out of shape: Graph
  31. Sleep – drowsy – always: Gels
  32. Chill – vomiting with: Eup per
  33. Fever – Anticipating: nux vom
  34. Perspiration – sour: Rheum
  35. Skin – Desquamation: Am c
  36. Generalities- atrophy muscular progressive: Phys

I found a few typographic errors, which I hope will be edited before the next reprint. I also found some rubrics, which are known to have many remedies, but having only one drug in this work. Of course, this book shows the intensity of drugs as mentioned in Lippe’s work, hence we can’t expect all drugs given in other repertories. Under such situations, we can compare the same with rubrics of other repertories. Hence, I would like to suggest the author to make a computer repertory tool so that it can be used practically in repertorisation process, and the rubric can be compared easily.

At the end, I can say with confidence that we have one more tool that can be kept along with Phatak’s repertory for bedside prescribing, also for the study of materia medica using a repertory.

Details of the book:

Title: The Summum Bonum of a Repertory
Author: Dr Mansoor Ali K R
Price: 300 INR
Published by: Indian books and periodicals publishers

ISBN
: 9788174673190

Rs.300/- 

For copies
INDIAN BOOKS & PERIODICALS SYNDICATE
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E-mail:   ibps.homoeopathy@gmail.com

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Purchase online : https://www.ompublications.in/product/books/OM24539 

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