Boericke's New Mannual of Homeopathic Materia Medica with Repertory

William Boericke was born on October 25, 1849 in Austria. He graduated from the Philadelphia Medical College in 1876 and from Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia in 1880. After moving to San Francisco, he took over the Boericke and Tafel pharmacy and practiced as a homoeopath for over fifty years. He was an editor of the California Homoeopath and co-founder of the Pacific Homoeopathic Medical College and Hahnemann Hospital in 1881. He was also a member of the faculty of Hahnemann Medical College in San Francisco. In 1901, he authored Boericke's Materia Medica. On April 1, 1929, he died of a massive heart attack.

In preparing the ninth edition, I have followed the lines laid out for all the previous editions, namely, to present in a condensed form the homeopathic materia medica for practical use.

The book contains the well known verified characteristic symptoms of all our medicines besides other less important symptoms aiding in the selection of the curative remedy. All the new medicines and essentials of the published clinical experience of the school have been added. In its present compact form, it contains the maximum number of reliable materia medica facts in the minimum space.

I have tried to give a succinct resume of the symptomatology of every medicine used in homeopathy, including clinical suggestions of several drugs which have not yet been based on provings, thus offering the opportunity to experiment with these and by future provings, discover their distinctive use and enlarge our armamentarium.

I am aware that there is a difference of opinion about the advisability of further introduction of remedies, especially of some which as seem obsolete or to some minds, illusory. But it is not for the compiler to leave out information about any substance that has received the clinical endorsement from a reliable source.

Our materia medica must include all substances which have been proved and which have been used with apparent efficacy. It rests with the individual student to judge for himself the accuracy and reliability of such observation. In this connection, I cannot forego to avail myself of the high authority of that master of homeopathy, Dr. Constantine Hering, who favoured the introduction of all remedies capable of producing reactions in the body that may guide us to their medicinal employment. "Homeopathy is essentially not only many-sided but all- sided." She investigates the action of all substances, whether articles of diet, beverages, condiments, drugs or poisons. She investigates their action on the healthy, the sick, animals and plants. She gives a new interpretation to that ancient, often quoted saying of Paul, "Prove all things—a new meaning, a new application that acts universally." Elimination of the useless may gradually take place with the growth of accurate physiological and pathological knowledge."

Again, imperfectly proved remedies necessitate the use of names of diseases at times instead of the component symptoms that alone are the legitimate guide to the choice of the curative remedy. Here, too, I have Hering, as a pioneer guide for the ligitimacy of this method, which he also followed in his great work, the Guiding Symptoms. He said that he used the disease designations not for the purpose of recommending the particular remedy for that disease, but to show the great variety of remedies that may be used for any form of disease when otherwise indicated. For the same reason | have included nosological terms in the symptomatology and the therapeutic index, as this is a practical handbook for every-day service, and an aid for finding the curative remedy ought to be utilized: As Dr. J. Compton Burnett expresses it:

"The fact is, we need any and every way of finding the right remedy; the simple simile, the simple symptomatic simillimum and the farthest reach of all-the pathological simillimum, and I maintain that we are still well within the lines of homeopathy that is expansive, progressive, science fostered and science fostering.’

The dosage needs some apology. It is, of course, suggestive only; more often to be wholly disregarded. I have followed the lines of the earlier homeopathists in this regard, and given what was then considered the usual range of potency, to which I have added my own experience and that of many observing practitioners. Every teacher of materia medica is constantly importuned by students to suggest the potency— something to start with at least.

The book is in no sense a treatise and must not be considered or judged as such. It is as accurate and reliable a compilation and the fullest collection of verified materia medica facts and clinical suggestions as it is possible to obtain with the compass of the volume. It supplements every other work on materia medica, and if used as a ready reminder of the essential facts of our vast symptomatology and as .an introduction to the larger books of reference and record of provings, it will fulfill its purpose and prove a useful aid to the student and general practitioner. As such it is again offered with much appreciation of past endorsement to his professional brethren.

I have been aided in seeing this edition through the press by the efficient help of Mr. F.O. Ernesty, who has lightened the labor of making the manuscript more acceptable to the printers, and I desire to express my hearty appreciation of this kind and helpful service.