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This book review is reprinted from No. 23, Autumn/Winter 2004 edition of The Homoeopath with permission from Nick Churchill of The Society of Homoeopaths.
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Repertorium Universale
by Roger van Zandvoort

Homeopathic Team, Italy 2004, Volume 1 and 2 Hardback, pp 3123
ISBN 8889315008

Reviewed by Francis Treuherz
[Read an Interview of Francis Treuherz]

Superlative and stupendous, feel the width and note the quality. These two volumes are still not the largest repertory on my shelves, but they are the most useful. Here for the first time the advantages of the Swedenborgian hierarchy of Kentian repertorisation (used in the Synthesis and the Complete repertories) are combined with an updated version of the Boenninghausen method. Generals and particulars nestle side by side with phenomena, concomitants and modalities in an easy alliance.

First the logistics: computers have their uses; my wife once said the only reason I did not take my laptop on our honeymoon is that laptops had not then yet been invented. Without a computer Roger van Zandvoort, the creative compiler, may not have been able to produce this work. But the book itself is beautiful, the binding is first rate, the typography legible, rubrics, remedies, cross-references, author numbers are all legible and distinguishable, even with no magnifier; and my eyesight is definitely middle-aged presbyopic. I try to repertorise at least one case with a book each day, and in order to write this review, I did even more. There is an explanatory introduction in volume 1, and indexes of authors and remedies and a bibliography in volume 2. Each chapter has a loose bookmark instead of a thumb index which makes for great flexibility, and the two volumes mean that one may cross refer and have them both open at one time. The books even stay smoothly open when a page near the front or back of a volume is consulted.

Each chapter contains the two approaches one after the other, so that whichever method is already familiar may be used easily, and combined with the other. The Universale differs from purely Kentian repertories. It still contains all the Kentian repertory information in a familiar form, namely all the information found in van Zandvoort's the Complete Repertory, but the alterations to its basic structure make it a far more flexible tool than one constrained to Kent's schema. The repertory is designed to work equally well with any number of different repertorisation strategies. Boenninghausen's approach can be used as easily as Kent's, and it is ideally suited to the newer family or group or thematic methods of analysis.

In the introduction and guide, van Zandvoort attempts to explain exactly how, where and why the Repertorium Universale differs from its predecessors, and what benefits it offers. This is very useful but it begssome questions and there are some omissions. None of these is serious and could easily be added to an interactive website where users might write in with cases and questions. For me, the first and most important issue is linguistic. The author is Dutch, and polyglot, he knows many European languages. But it is clear that his English requires work by a professional editor whose first language is English. There are even a few spelling errors in rubrics.

Then there are some assumptions; the one that strikes me is that the author knows best. He is a great scholar, but he is no longer in practice and not a teacher. He assumes that we will understand his work. There is no introduction to new students, for whom the history of repertories may not be enthralling, for whom the importance of this work may not be understood, and who certainly will not be able to use the book unaided. The cases are excellent but more explanations are needed. Samuel Johnson described a lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, as a harmless drudge. Van Zandvoort is a creative genius, but needs an interpreter. The Mirilli repertory and a clinical chapter are there with no explanations. Kent's prostate chapter has vanished mysteriously. The lack of italic grades has been explained rather too briefly for my liking. So on the one hand the book is so clear, and on the other more explanation is needed. I hope that this can be provided and that the author will write a short volume to explain more about how he goes about his work, and how we may learn to go about ours. On the other hand this should put paid to those repertories that do not display their sources or explain their methodologies, which seduce students into lazy anti-intellectual ways of working.

This book deserves to become the repertory of choice for the present and for the future. It should be on the desk of every student, teacher and practitioner. The inspiration of the author will create perspiration for all of us and become a part of our continuing professional development.