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This book review is reprinted with permission from Volume 19, Summer 2006 Edition of Homeopathic Links.
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Synthesis 9.1
By: Frederick Schroyens

ISBN: 1-902-573-13-x, 2214 pages, hard cover
Archibel, 2005, Belgium

Reviewed by Kees Dam, Netherlands

This book version has 2088 repertory pages (the first edition, Synthesis 5, had 1720 pages) so the book is still portable and manageable - despite having thousands of additions to that first edition.

The theme of Synthesis 9.1 is streamlining and restructuring. Every experienced repertory user knows how many beautiful modalities are hidden in (difficult -to-find) sub-rubrics that ought to have a more prominent place so they can be found more easily. An example from an original rubric in Kent: Head, pain, shooting, singing, from: alum, ptel. If you have a patient who gets a headache from singing then you want to find this modality in the general pain section (Head, pain, singing) and not only under the particular description. of painshooting.

The solution in Synthesis 9.1 is a computerised restructuring of levels. What is a level in the repertory structure? In the rubric: Head, pain, shooting, singing, from -, head is Level 1, pain is Level 2, shooting is Level 3, singing is Level 4. In Synthesis 9.1 they promoted Level 4 (singing) and made Level 3 (shooting) the last level. Now singing can be in the general pain section as a Level 3 and still connected with the description of the pain (as a Level 4). So in 9.1 this is done in a structural way for all the other many hidden examples and in such a way that the original source rubric can still be traced. In Synthesis 9.1 the rubric is: Head, pain, singing agg: alum, ptel (but with) subrubric: shooting pain: alum, ptel. Normally when remedies are generalised from Level 4 into a general pain section modality (like here into head, pain, singing) the remedy is followed by a down-arrow (meaning: see below from which pain description it comes). As a result of this computerised restructuring also all the pain descriptions are found as a kind of "modality" under the general pain section. So the general pain section (especially in HEAD and EXTREMITIES) becomes quite crowded and long but I still consider this restructuring a breakthrough and an enormous improvement in the functionality of the repertory.

Another improvement is undoubtedly the "streamlining" - meaning for example that modalities like air, cold agg. or bathing, warm agg. are now all consistently found as: cold air agg.; warm bathing agg. The rule is that in a combined modality an element that indicates temperature will serve as the entry word of the modality (exception: weather and wind). And all adjectives in the modality like: sensitive to; caused by; when in; while; after etc are now uniformly addressed as: agg.

The chapters MIND and DREAMS are still to be streamlined because this has to be done manually: there are too many exceptions there to undertake this with an automated process.

In Synthesis 9.1 the repertories of Boger and Bonninghausen are incorporated, this has also resulted in three extra chapters: NECK; URINARY ORGANS; FEMALE/MALE GENITALIA (if gender does not playa role).

Also the repertories of Boericke and Phatak are integrated in Synthesis 9.1.

Because of the restructuring a lot of hidden remedies in sub-rubrics of descriptions of pain have been copied to more main/general rubrics. In the Pain and Physical chapters this has been done with an automatic computer program. In the Mind they have checked every sub-rubric to see if copying of remedies to the main rubric was appropriate.

Of course where people check mistakes can be made and it is up to the homeopathic community to be critical and scrutinise in order to get the best repertory. In Synthesis 9.1 there is a rubric Mind, fear, health (19). First of all it is not totally clear what is meant with this rubric - the first clue will be fear about health but there is no crossreference to anxiety, health, about. There are, however, two sub-rubrics: 1 - loved persons, about health of and 2 - ruined, that she has. The two sub-rubrics have a totally different meaning but from both sub-rubrics remedies were copied in the main rubric, making this main rubric useless.

Another rubric in which the meaning is not clear is the rubric: Fear, hurt, of being (is this meant to be emotional or physical hurt?) with two sub-rubrics: soldiers, in children; by (so children are afraid to be hurt by soldiers, would indicate fear of physical injury), the second sub-rubric is: emotionally (= feelings will be hurt by others): carc, chin. That would indicate that the meaning of the main rubric would be physical hurt but we already have the unambiguous rubric fear, injured, of being (in that case it would be a double rubric). Looking at the remedies in the main rubric Fear of being hurt: nat-m, carc, vanil- we would be inclined to think of emotional hurt, but also arn, ruta, rhus-t, symph are there. So the meaning of hurt stays doubtful.

Frederik Schroyens writes in his introduction: "Sorting all symptoms in alphabetical order may appear the ultimate solution, yet it is not. There is a homeopathically meaningful relationship between certain symptoms and it makes sense to have these on the same page, rather than scattered because of the alphabet"

So in Synthesis 9.1 symptoms of sides (left, right) have been kept together; symptoms expressing time (morning, evening, night); modalities and descriptions of pain are sorted alphabetically within the section; all extensions depending on the rubric extending to are sorted alphabetically and all localisations are sorted alphabetically. The localisations especially can be a real challenge to the adaptive capacity of many a homeopath. In HEAD the pains on the different places of the head were always alphabetical: forehead, occiput, sides, temples. But in EXTREMITIES it was always anatomical; upper limbs, upper arm, elbow, forearm, hand, fingers. But now the order is: ankles, elbows, feet, fingers, flexors, forearms, hands, hips, joints, knees, legs, lower limbs, muscles, nates, shoulders, thighs, thumbs, toes, upper limbs, wrists. For people already used to the Murphy Repertory (an alphabetical one) it is nothing new, but for homeopaths who were always loyal to Kent, this is a real Kafka-like experience and they will not get used to this easily. I cannot see the advantage of this and I am convinced that the anatomical relationship is a very meaningful relationship, too meaningful to give up for an alphabetical order.

Synthesis 9.1 is definitely one of the best repertories we have nowadays but the improvement of the repertory is a still ongoing process. Which rubrics or remedies will we add, according to which criteria? Where to add them - as a main rubric or as a sub-rubric under an existing similar rubric? Which rubrics can be grouped together or merged to prevent too much leafing to and fro for the repertory user? Crossreferences - which are superfluous and which still lack? .

In a future general article on the repertory I want to evaluate the contemporary repertories, comparing the main existing ones, their weaknesses and strong points and see what has been done with suggestions I made in LINKS ten years ago (see article The Mind of the Repertory', LINKS 1/96 page 18).