Vol. 21 No. 2 April 2001
On page 1376 of Kent’s Repertory is the rubric “NURSING children” with the abbreviations of 50 remedies following (in the Final General Edition). Does this mean the problems of lactating mothers or the problems of breast-fed infants? One is led to believe conditions of sucklings is meant because the subrubric says “NURSING mothers: (See loss of fluids).”
However, looking up the entry in Bönninghausen’s Therapeutic Pocketbook from which the entry in Kent was derived it can be seen this inference is not correct - the ambiguous words “nursing children” must mean the troubles of nursing mothers, not their babies.
In The Bönninghausen Repertory: Therapeutic Pocketbook Method edited by George Dimitriadis we find the rubric (numbered 2347) “Suckling the infant (breast-feeding, nursing), whilst:” and reference to 44 remedies, all of which are found in the Kent entry - with almost identical grading, too. The associated note in the book’s appendix reads, “2347 Verschlimmerung, Beim Säugen (Stillen) der Kinder = by suckling (breast-feeding) the child.”
From this information it may be safely concluded that the Kent entry refers to lactating mothers, or at least mainly so.
But what about the troubles of breast-feeding babies? Do they get a rubric? Is the Kent entry so confused it has a mix of both mother and child remedies?
The Swiss homœopath Will Klunker spotted the problem of the confused rubrics long ago and answered the three questions above with two rubrics to replace the corrupt one in an article first published in German in 1973.
Here are Klunker’s corrections, derived from extensive consultation of repertories and materia medicas:
NURSING MOTHERS: acon, agn, ant-t, bell, bor, BRY, CALC, calc-p, carb-an, carb-v, cast-eq, caust, cham, chel, chin, cina, con, crot-t, dulc, ferr, graph, ign, iod, ip, kali-c, lach, lyc, merc, mill, nat-c, nat-m, nux-v, olnd, ph-ac, phel, phos, PHYT, PULS, rheum, rhus-t, samb, sec, SEP, SIL, spig, stann, stram, sulph, zinc (see also: loss of fluids p. 1371).
NURSLINGS: acon, aeth, ant-c, ant-t, arn, ars, bell, BOR, BRY, CALC, calc-p, camph, carb-v, CHAM, chin, cina, coloc, crot-t, dulc, ferr, graph, hep, ign, ip, kali-c, lach, lyc, mag-c, merc, nat-c, nat-m, NAT-P, nux-v, OP, ph-ac, phos, podo, psor, PULS, rheum, rhus-t, samb, sec, sil, stann, staph, stram, sulph, verat, zinc.
The ‘nursing mothers” entry above now contains most of the remedies found in Bönninghausen; these remedies are no longer there - Ars, Scill, Selen, Staph - and these remedies have been added - Ant-t, Calc-p, Cast-eq, Caust, Lac-c, Olnd, Phel.