This book review is reprinted from the British Homoeopathic Journal Volume 79, Number 3, July 1990, with permission from Peter Fisher, Editor.
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Perceiving Rubrics of the Mind.
Farokh J. Master.
New Delhi: B. Jain Publishers (P) Ltd.
Book code B-3411.

Among the fascinations and frustrations of the various repertories available to us is the correct interpretation of the rubrics. Their language is often archaic, ambiguous or vague and therefore difficult to apply to our patients' own description of their symptoms. The most skilled and sensitive casetaking will be frustrated if we cannot confidently and accurately represent the meaning of the patient with the meaning of the text in the repertory, or for that matter the materia medica, when we need to.

Dr Master's book sets out to remedy this problem. It provides a comprehensive list of rubrics from the repertories of Kent, Boenninghausen, Barthel (synthetic repertory) and Vithoulkas, with cross references to other comparable rubrics, a definition of the meaning of the rubric, an explanation or interpretation of this, a list of clinical syndromes to which it is relevant, and of the chief drugs associated with the rubric.

The intention is admirable, and such a book could be extremely useful. Unfortunately the author fails in the attempt, and I really cannot recommend the book except for its collection of cross references. These do call to mind other rubrics which may express the patient's meaning better and should be considered. This is a useful practical aid and an aid to better knowledge of the repertory, but this virtue alone would not justify buying the book because the central discussion of the meaning of rubrics is very poor. The meanings and explanations, which tend to be paraphrases of one another, are in the main either obvious, incorrect, incomplete, or subjective. I am afraid that British readers, and our European colleagues whose interpretation and accuracy in the use of English often puts us to shame, will even find many of them comical. The psychiatric diagnoses given in association with each rubric are all obvious and add nothing to our understanding of them.

The book bears no comparison with Kent's Comparative Repertory of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica (Dockx and Kokelenberg; Homeoden Book Service, Belgium). This excellent study, which also integrates data from other authors, draws out the sense of rubrics by a perceptive analysis of the meaning represented by the medicines in the rubric. It promises to be a contemporary classic in the homoeopathic literature, and it is this book that I would recommend to fulfil the purpose that Dr Master sets out to achieve.

JEREMY SWAYNE

British Homoeopathic Journal
Volume 79, Number 3, July 1990