A Stitch In Time Saves Nine
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 1997 Nov / Dec VOL 5 NO 6.
Dr [Mrs] Suneeta S Tripathi
'Lyco

Repertory comes to my rescue in acutes as well as chronic cases. In acutes wheever I am in a fix struggling with 4/5 drugs in mind a quick reference to the repertory helps in deciding one of them. Especially in actues, I always find a faithful reliable friend in the repertory. The Repertory which I use most frequently is Dr Kent's especially in acutes. Following is a recent example.

Since 14/11/97 , after returning from a trip I was suffering from acute pharyngitis, which I neglected. As a result throat pain was followed by cough. Dry type especially on lying down. I just could not put my head on the pillow. It used to result in an exhausting attack of dry cough. I could not sleep the whole night. At this stage my mind got STUCK with 'Cough as soon as the head touches the pillow" and the only drug which came to my mind was DROSERA. I overlooked everything and I started with Drosera 30 . It did help me but as expected PARTIALLY.; what was similar to Drosera was wiped off ie cough agg. as soon as head touches the pillow. And the cough continued. after suffering for 3 days ie 1st day I neglected, 2nd day cough started 3rd day partial amel. I decided to help myself honestly and I sat down with paper and pen: The following Totality emerged: 
1] Thermal state = Hot
2] thirstless
3] Cough drg agg Lying/3 smoke/3 dust/3.
4] Throat pain amel warm drinks 3
O/E Rs- nad
T= N
Throat = Red+ with follicles

Then I referred dr Kent's repertory combining 1] 2] following drugs were there:
Aesc, ambr, am-m, ant-c, ant-tart, Apis, arg-n, brom, bry, ip, lyc, nat-m, nat-s, op, Puls, sulph, Thuja, [K 530]
3] Cough drya gg lying [Kent 789]
Allum, cinnb, con, Hyos, ip, Kal-br, lyc, rumx, seneg, sulph, tab, thuj, zinc. 

4] Cough dry agg smoke: Kali-bi [K- 789] only drug
Cough agg Dust I could not locate in chapter on cough. The rubric available was DUST as from. So I left it.

5] Throat pian amel warm drinks [K 459] Alum, Ars, calc-fl, calc-p, cham, guare, Hep, Lyc, nux-v, rhus-t, sabad, sulph. 

Lyc and Slph emerged. I was not satisfied because in the chapter on cough agg smoke and agg dust. were not available satisfactorily. For dry cough agg smoke only "Kali-bi" was available and cough [general] agg. smoke euph and ment. and these drugs were not covering the totality. where as agg SMOKE and DUST was very prominet in my case. I could not enter the kitchen without fatiguing myself from cough due to smoke even from the frying pan and slightest dust particle used to irritate my throat and cough used to start so I decided to do justice to smoke and dust by referring the general modality in Dr Boger Boenninghausens Repertory
1] Gen. agg smoke [BB 1142]
Ars, bro, calc-c, Lyc, nat-ar, sil. 
Lyc was covering both agg dust and smoke so I opted for Lyc and started with Lyco 30 tds. The result was within 3 days I was better 90%. Throat and follicles had reduced. Remaining 10% was taken care of by constitutional medicine.

The whole process of referring took me hardly 30 minutes. The moral of the story is NOT to be overconfident and NOT to overlook small things which can later become troublesome. In short "A stitch in time saves nine" 

If we record a case properly and properly from a TOTALITY of the patient be it an acute case or a chronic then only we can derive the maximum benefit from any repertory. The physician should be well conversant with the language of the reprtory and language of the patient and should be able to convert th language of the patient ie the symptom of the patient to language of the repertory ie the RUBRIC. If one is able to deal with this and then refer to the repertory, the resutl is ALWAYS REWARDING.