Homeopathy glossary

A worsening of symptoms. A homeopathic aggravation is a brief intensification of the patient's existing symptoms soon after a well-chosen remedy, usually followed by improvement; it is distinguished from a new set of symptoms produced by a wrong remedy, and from the disease simply progressing.

See: /blog/homeopathic-potency-selection-guide

A remedy or substance that stops the action of another remedy. The classic materia medicas list antidotes under each entry so that an unwanted or excessive reaction can be checked; camphor and coffee are the antidotes most often cited for a wide range of remedies.

See: /materia-medica/boericke

The 1905 repertory in which C. M. Boger reorganised and expanded Boenninghausen's work. It is built for the Boenninghausen method: complete symptoms assembled from location, sensation, modality and concomitant, with modalities generalised across the whole case rather than tied to one part.

See: /blog/boenninghausen-boger-repertory-method

The event or exposure after which the complaint began, such as grief, fright, cold wet weather, loss of fluids or an injury. Repertories index causations under rubrics such as 'ailments from', and a clear causation often ranks above physical symptoms in the analysis.

See: /blog/homeopathic-case-taking-guide

A symptom that is striking, singular, uncommon and peculiar to the patient rather than common to the disease, as described in paragraph 153 of the Organon. Characteristic symptoms carry the most weight in repertorisation because they point to a small number of remedies.

See: /blog/how-to-repertorize-beginners-guide

A repertory arranged by named conditions and clinical states rather than by the anatomical and functional chapters of Kent. Boericke's Clinical Repertory, the index bound with his Pocket Manual, is the best known; it is used for quick therapeutic checks, then confirmed in a full repertory.

See: /blog/boericke-clinical-repertory-guide

A remedy that completes or extends the action of another, given when the first has acted well but the case is not finished. Materia medicas record these relationships under each entry: Sulphur after Aconite, Silica after Pulsatilla, Calcarea carbonica after Belladonna.

See: /materia-medica/boericke

A symptom that occurs alongside the main complaint without an obvious connection to it, such as a headache that comes with nausea, or a fever with thirstlessness. In the Boenninghausen method the concomitant is one of the four elements of a complete symptom and is often decisive.

See: /blog/boenninghausen-boger-repertory-method

The patient's whole make-up: temperament, build, reactions to heat, cold, weather and food, and characteristic mental state. A constitutional remedy is the one whose picture matches this totality rather than the presenting acute complaint alone.

See: /blog/top-homeopathic-remedies-student-guide

A pointer from one rubric to another that covers the same or a related idea under different wording, printed in the repertory as 'see' or 'compare'. Following cross-references is how a practitioner finds the rubric that actually holds the remedies for a symptom.

See: /blog/kent-repertory-guide-structure-online

The process of preparing a remedy by serial dilution with succussion (vigorous shaking) at each step, or by trituration for insoluble substances. Hahnemann held that the process develops the medicinal power of the substance; the number of steps gives the potency.

See: /blog/homeopathic-potency-selection-guide

A rubric chosen at the start of a repertorisation because the practitioner is confident every plausible remedy must appear in it, typically a strong general or a striking mental symptom. Only remedies in that rubric are considered further, which shortens the analysis but fails if the rubric is chosen carelessly.

See: /blog/how-to-repertorize-beginners-guide

Symptoms that belong to the whole patient rather than to one part: reactions to heat and cold, weather, time of day, sleep, food desires and aversions, thirst, perspiration and energy. Kent ranked generals above particulars, so a strong general outweighs several local symptoms in the analysis.

See: /blog/how-to-repertorize-beginners-guide

The weight a repertory gives a remedy within a rubric, printed as different typefaces. Kent uses three grades: bold capitals for the most confirmed remedies, italics for the next, plain type for the least; Murphy's Repertory uses four. Grades add up in the repertorisation chart.

See: /blog/kent-repertory-guide-structure-online

The observation attributed to Constantine Hering that cure proceeds from above downwards, from within outwards, from more important to less important organs, and in the reverse order of the symptoms' appearance. Practitioners use it to judge whether a remedy's action is curative or merely suppressive.

See: /blog/herings-law-direction-of-cure-guide

A remedy that does not follow well after another and may disturb its action, as recorded in the relationship notes of the classic materia medicas. Pulsatilla and Sepia, or Causticum and Phosphorus, are commonly listed pairs; the note is a caution about sequence, not a prohibition.

See: /materia-medica/boericke

Treatment with a potentised preparation of the very substance that caused the complaint, such as a potency of a pollen for hay fever from that pollen. It differs from homeopathy proper, which prescribes on similarity of the whole symptom picture, though the two overlap in the use of nosodes.

See: /blog/nosodes-in-homeopathy-guide

A symptom so characteristic of a remedy that it identifies it: Bryonia's aggravation from the slightest motion, Pulsatilla's thirstlessness, Arsenicum's restless anxiety after midnight. Allen's Keynotes and Nash's Leaders are the classic collections; keynotes confirm a choice, they do not replace the totality.

See: /materia-medica

The principle on which homeopathy rests: a substance that produces a set of symptoms in a healthy person can cure a similar set of symptoms in a sick one. Hahnemann set it out in the Organon; the remedy that matches the patient's totality most closely is the similimum.

See: /blog/organon-of-medicine-guide

The potency scale Hahnemann introduced in the sixth edition of the Organon, diluted 1:50,000 at each step and taken in repeated small doses, usually in water. LM potencies are written LM1, LM2 (or Q1, Q2) and are used where a gentle, frequently repeated action is wanted.

See: /blog/lm-q-potencies-guide

The reference that describes each remedy in full: the symptoms produced in provings and confirmed in cured cases, ordered from mind to body, with modalities and relationships. Boericke, Clarke, Kent, Allen and Hering wrote the classics; the repertory is its index.

See: /materia-medica

The patient's characteristic emotional and intellectual state: fears, moods, reactions to consolation or contradiction, memory, delusions. Kent's Repertory opens with the Mind chapter because, in his method, a clear mental symptom outranks the physical particulars.

See: /blog/how-to-repertorize-beginners-guide

Hahnemann's term, from The Chronic Diseases, for an inherited or acquired predisposition that underlies chronic illness and explains why acute prescribing fails to cure it. He described three: psora, sycosis and syphilis; later authors added tubercular and cancer miasms.

See: /blog/miasms-psora-sycosis-syphilis-guide

A condition that makes a symptom better or worse: time of day, temperature, weather, motion, position, pressure, eating, company. Modalities separate remedies that share a symptom, which is why every materia medica entry lists them and every repertory indexes them.

See: /repertory

The alcoholic extract of the source substance from which potencies are prepared, written with the symbol Ø. It is the starting point of the potency scale; the first centesimal potency is one part of tincture in ninety-nine parts of diluent, succussed.

See: /blog/homeopathic-potency-selection-guide

A remedy prepared from a product of disease, such as Tuberculinum, Medorrhinum, Psorinum or Carcinosin. Nosodes are prescribed on their proving and clinical pictures like any other remedy, and are often used to clear a miasmatic block when well-indicated remedies stop acting.

See: /blog/nosodes-in-homeopathy-guide

Hahnemann's statement of homeopathic method, written as numbered paragraphs (aphorisms) and revised through six editions between 1810 and 1842. The sixth edition, published in 1921, introduced the LM potencies and is the text studied in most classical training.

See: /blog/organon-of-medicine-guide

Symptoms that belong to one part of the body: a pain in the left knee, a discharge from the right ear. They are the most numerous symptoms in any case and the least individual, so Kent's method ranks them below the mentals and generals unless a particular is strikingly characteristic.

See: /blog/how-to-repertorize-beginners-guide

A remedy with a broad, deep and well-proven action covering many symptoms in every chapter of the repertory: Sulphur, Calcarea carbonica, Lycopodium, Pulsatilla, Nux vomica, Arsenicum, Phosphorus, Sepia. Polychrests appear in most repertorisations and are the remedies students learn first.

See: /blog/polycrest-remedies-guide

The number of dilution-and-succussion steps a remedy has undergone and the scale used: decimal (X or D, 1:10), centesimal (C, 1:100) or fifty-millesimal (LM/Q, 1:50,000). A 30C has been diluted 1:100 thirty times; potency selection depends on the case's vitality and the clarity of the picture.

See: /blog/homeopathic-potency-selection-guide

A systematic trial in which healthy volunteers take a substance and record every symptom it produces, under supervision and usually blinded. Provings are the primary source of the materia medica; symptoms later confirmed by cures are marked in the higher grades of the repertory.

See: /materia-medica

The first and most widespread of Hahnemann's three miasms, associated with suppressed skin disease and expressed as functional disturbance, itching, deficiency and a tendency to relapse. Sulphur is its principal remedy; Hahnemann attributed most chronic disease to it.

See: /blog/miasms-psora-sycosis-syphilis-guide

The process of selecting the characteristic symptoms of a case, finding the rubric for each in the repertory, and combining the remedies and grades across those rubrics to rank the candidates. The ranking is then checked against the materia medica before prescribing.

See: /blog/how-to-repertorize-beginners-guide

An index of symptoms, called rubrics, each listing the remedies known to produce or cure that symptom, in graded type. Kent's Repertory (1897) fixed the modern structure of 37 chapters from Mind to Generals; Boenninghausen, Boger, Murphy and the Complete Repertory are the other works in daily use.

See: /repertory

A single entry in a repertory: a symptom, stated in the repertory's own wording, together with the remedies known to produce or cure it, each marked with a grade. Rubrics are nested, so 'Head, pain, forehead, morning' narrows 'Head, pain' step by step.

See: /repertory

A remedy prepared from healthy tissue or a healthy secretion, such as Thyroidinum or Adrenalinum, as distinct from a nosode, which is prepared from a product of disease. Sarcodes are used on their own symptom pictures and in organ-support prescribing.

See: /blog/nosodes-in-homeopathy-guide

A search that matches the meaning of the words typed rather than their letters, so a symptom described in modern language ('dreads being watched while eating') finds the rubric even when the repertory uses nineteenth-century wording. Similia's repertory and materia medica use it on every plan.

See: /ai-features

The most similar remedy: the one whose proving and clinical picture matches the patient's totality of characteristic symptoms more closely than any other. Repertorisation narrows the field to a few candidates; the similimum is chosen by comparing them in the materia medica.

See: /blog/how-to-repertorize-beginners-guide

The second of Hahnemann's miasms, historically linked to suppressed gonorrhoea and expressed as overgrowth: warts and condylomata, catarrhal discharges, rheumatic states and fixed ideas. Thuja and Medorrhinum are its principal remedies.

See: /blog/miasms-psora-sycosis-syphilis-guide

The third of Hahnemann's miasms, historically linked to suppressed syphilis and expressed as destruction: ulceration, bone pains worse at night, deformity and despair. Mercurius, Aurum and Syphilinum are its leading remedies. Together with psora and sycosis it forms the classical miasmatic triad.

See: /blog/miasms-psora-sycosis-syphilis-guide

The complete picture of the patient's characteristic symptoms, mental, general and particular, taken together with their modalities and causation. The Organon makes the totality the only basis for choosing a remedy; case taking exists to assemble it and repertorisation to analyse it.

See: /blog/homeopathic-case-taking-guide

Grinding an insoluble substance with lactose in a mortar for a fixed time at each of the first potency steps, usually to 3C, after which it can be dissolved and potentised in liquid. Metals, minerals and many salts enter the materia medica this way.

See: /blog/homeopathic-potency-selection-guide

The practice of prescribing a single remedy at a time, chosen on the totality of symptoms, and waiting to observe its action before any change, as Hahnemann described. The term is used in French and Spanish practice (homéopathie uniciste, homeopatía unicista) to distinguish this method from complex and pluralist prescribing.

See: /blog/unicist-homeopathy-guide

Hahnemann's name for the self-regulating principle that keeps the organism in health and whose disturbance is expressed as disease. In his account the remedy acts on the vital force, which then removes the disturbance; the term frames why symptoms, not laboratory findings, guide the prescription.

See: /blog/organon-of-medicine-guide