Repertory and Case Taking in the Third Year — three masters, three repertories

In the first year, a student learned what a repertory is. In the second, they watched cases being taken and met a second repertory. In the Third Professional year — HomUG-R-III in the NCH curriculum — Repertory and Case Taking becomes a complete working method: from taking the case, through processing it according to named philosophies, to repertorising it with a chosen repertory and understanding why that choice was made.

The CBDC course content has two chapters, one per term. Each is dense.

**Term I: case taking and case processing.** The first term begins where the second year left off, with the demonstration of case taking — now in moderate acute and chronic cases, a step up from the simple cases of the year before. It then works through the processing of a case in a clear sequence.

First, the classification of symptoms. Then three operations, each studied according to the philosophy of three masters — Dr. Boenninghausen, Dr. Kent and Dr. Boger:

– the analysis of the case;
– the evaluation of symptoms;
– the construction of the totality of symptoms.

This threefold comparison is the intellectual heart of the year. The same case, analysed and evaluated in three traditions, can yield three different totalities. A student who works through the comparison learns that repertorisation is not a mechanical procedure but a sequence of reasoned choices, each of which rests on a philosophy.

The term then turns to the repertories themselves: the classification of repertories — the need for classification, its basis, and the advantages, disadvantages and adaptability of each type. The first-year terminology chapter named some of these types; here they are weighed. Then come the steps of repertorisation; the medium, method, process and technique of repertorisation; and the construction of the repertorial syndrome and the potential differential field of a repertorial totality. The last two terms were defined in the first year. The third year puts them to work.

**Term II: the general repertories and their application.** The second term studies three general repertories — BTPB, Kent, and BBCR. For each, the syllabus asks for its philosophical background, its construction, its scope, its limitation and its utility. Coming after Term I’s comparison of three philosophies of case processing, the study of three repertories gives that comparison its working instruments: a student learns how each book was built, and what it is suited for.

Two application topics complete the term. One asks students to identify chapters and locate rubrics for symptoms and conditions related to Gynaecology, Obstetrics, Surgery and Practice of Medicine — the three clinical subjects of the same year. The other asks them to understand miasm and to identify the rubrics related to the symptoms of each miasm in the three repertories. That second topic runs in parallel with the Organon course, which studies Hahnemann’s theory of chronic diseases and J. H. Allen’s The Chronic Miasms in the same year, and with the Materia Medica course, which correlates miasms with remedy symptomatology.

**How this fits the whole.** The third year is where the three homoeopathic subjects begin to work as one. The Organon supplies the principles of case taking and the theory of miasm. The Materia Medica supplies the medicines and their groups. The Repertory course supplies the method that connects the case to the literature. A student who studies the three together will find that each clarifies the others.

For study, the syllabus suggests its own approach: keep the three philosophies and the three repertories side by side, work the same case through each, and note where the results diverge and why.

As this room fills, a student will find pieces written to this syllabus: orientations to the analysis, evaluation and totality of symptoms in each of the three philosophies, study notes on the construction and use of BTPB, Kent and BBCR, explainers on the classification of repertories and the steps of repertorisation, and pieces on locating the rubrics for miasms across the three repertories. Everything here carries the third-year tag and the Repertory category, so it also stands on the Repertory topic in Homoeopathy Knowledge.