FAQ

Even If you are a doctor, treating oneself is never easy. If you are not a doctor or licensed practitioner of Homoeopathy, you should not attempt to treat either yourself or others.
Conditions such as high blood pressure, lung, liver, kidney, endocrine disease (diabetes, thyroid etc.), heart disease and even cancers are extremely common - almost one in three people might suffer from one of these conditions, and not know it. A patient may present with a headache, but the reason could be high blood pressure or a brain tumor. This program is meant to help qualified/licensed homoeopathic physicians in their clinical practice.

PhaseRep is a web-based program, and will run on all operating systems including Windows, Mac OS, Linux etc.

PhaseRep runs in any modern browser with JavaScript enabled. It has been tested on Opera, Firefox, Chrome, Edge and Safari. It also works on the iPad, Android tablets or phones. However, though it works on most smart phones, the small screens do not give the most aesthetic results, and might be a tad inconvenient to use, requiring scrolling etc.

Yes. Right at the top of the final page, next to "Repertorization Results for xyz", there are buttons to save the file as PDF or HTML. HTML files open in your browser. You can read or print PDFs using any freeware PDF viewer including Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader.

No, the program does not install anything on your computer. All the computation is done on the web server and the results are delivered to your computer. It will even work on your phone - just visit the link www.avsprasad.com. Of course, due to the small screen space, this is not ideal. It works fine on a Kindle or iPad!

You don't look for rubrics with PhaseRep - you look at the rubrics!
In other word, you may not find "Feigns sickness" or "Dreams of being lost in a forest". However, you will find other symptoms which the patient has, and can select those.
The 400 rubrics (approx) in PhaseRep represent extremely common symptoms in patients (and drugs). For example: cold, cough, fever, headache, backache, abdominal colic, constipation, diarrhea etc. The common cravings - sweet, salty, spicy, sour, cr cold, cr warm etc. From the list of rubrics, consider carefully what could apply to your patient, and you will usually find at least 6 or more, and those, combined with what you select from the next phase of repertorization, give surprisingly accurate results!
* Diagnosis: The diagnosis can also be just any symptom / sign found in the main list of rubrics, such as cough or leucorrhea. In that case, it will focus the repertory program on rubrics for cough or leucorrhea etc.

We have found that the system works best when there are a certain number of rubrics. Too few or too many tends to skew results. While selecting rubrics, don't worry about how many you are choosing - you should not think about that, but should take all that seem applicable. Then, once you have selected, the program may tell you to remove some - here, evaluate and remove the less "certain" or "definite" rubrics from the list.

The PhaseRep repertory is a custom repertory with rubrics coined by Dr. Prasad. It is not a standard repertory; however, it is based on standard repertories, principally Kent, Phatak, G.Boericke & Synthesis (edition 5.2) repertories. Some rubrics are based on symptoms from Materia Medicas such as Boericke, Kent's Lectures, Guernsey's Keynotes and Boger's Synoptic Key.

Specific therapeutics of diarrhea, which allows a more detailed analysis. If the complaint is chronic, long-standing, it is very likely that the General PhaseRep would be more useful in finding the right remedy. PhaseRep - Diarrhea is still in early development, so please use it as an additional tool only, and not as a substitute for conventional repertories.

PhaseRep includes drugs found in Boericke's Materia Medica only. It consists of drugs like pulsatilla, sulphur, calc carb, nit-ac.... and also bothrops, dulcamara, latrodectus mactans, theridion, xanthoxylum, viscum album. No black mamba, lac delphinum, testudo h etc. However, for drugs found in Boericke's Materia medica, it includes rubrics that have been verified and are found in newer repertories like Synthesis.

PhaseRep has a unique, custom repertory, and the content of the repertory will not be made available presently. You can and should validate the results by looking up the Materia Medica before prescribing a drug.

I appreciate the concern that one must not take the matter of prescribing lightly. The question here is – does PhaseRep really limit our search for the simillimum? I have found PhaseRep to be a very useful companion to conventional repertories. In some cases, it gives better results, and in others, the regular repertory programs are more useful. I myself use other programs too. I feel that every tool and method should be used – so long as the final prescription is made on a careful comparison with the drug pictures in reliable Materia Medicas.
PhaseRep expands, rather than limits our search. It does this by suggesting other drugs which one might not think of, or which might not come up on routine repertorization. In the cases I have published on this site, the patient would have perhaps received some routine polychrest had it not been for PhaseRep. I might have prescribed ars-alb in the crataegus case, or allium cepa instead of squilla. I have also put up a case of xanthoxyllum – led to the remedy solely through PhaseRep.
PhaseRep not only expands the search, but it double-checks the drug resulting from the search, and as mentioned in several places on this site – one still does not just prescribe based on repertorial results. One goes to the Materia Medica, as shown in the Crataegus case.
It is up to the prescriber to understand the various tools available to his trade, select what is appropriate for the job, and use it carefully.

PhaseRep is and will remain free. We hope that the availability of this program will help simplify the practice of Homoeopathy, and enable doctors to get more consistent results.

No, it is available only over the web. There are currently no plans to release a standalone version.

You can now search Kent's Repertory (3rd Edition) using a combination of words, and also select which grade rubrics you want displayed. With the Basis as Kent's Repertory, many rubrics and drugs from Vithoulkas' "Additions to Kent's Repertory" as well as Kunzli's "Kent Repertorium Generale" have been added. This allows us to include drugs like Carcinosin, but the repertory remains highly conservative.

Kent's repertory will be enhanced with keynotes over time. Several drugs may be in grade 3 in the repertory, but not all are keynotes. For example, burning of soles may be found in some 40 or 50 drugs in Kent's repertory, and interestingly, we have calc, lyc and sulph in 3 marks - kent's trio which follow each other well! However, this rubric is a keynote of sulphur and not so much of the other drugs. You would expect almost every sulphur patient to confirm that he has burning of soles at night esp. in summer, and keeps feet out of covers. However, with lyc it's more burning between the shoulder blades and in calc, it is feet feeling cold and damp at night, wears socks. So an underline helps us zero in on the most important drug - even if it is of the same grade. I have just begun working on the addition of keynotes and expect it to take 4 months or more. However, as they are added, they should add immense value to the repertory search. When a drug is underlined, it means it is either present in Allen's Keynotes, Guernsey, Nash or is very strongly emphasized in Boger, Farrington or Kent's Materia Medicas.

UniqSort is a program that sorts rubrics by their uniqueness and distinctiveness. Rubrics of a drug which are unique to it, shared with no other drug, are displayed at the top. This is followed by those rubrics it shares with 2, then 3, or more drugs. Within the unique sorted list, keynote (underlined) rubrics for the drug searched are displayed at the top, then grade 3, followed by grade 2, and lastly grade 1.
In addition, it also allows you to choose two or more drugs, so that you can see what is unique to each. There are symptoms which might be common to both drugs, for example, right sided headache - so this will not be a distinguishing factor. Knowing what is most distinctive of a drug helps in recognizing it's true signature.

This Materia Medica is a selection of some symptoms that can be used for additional confirmation. It is just a convenience, and should not be used in place of standard Materia Medicas like Boericke, Phatak, Hering's condensed MM, Concordant MM, etc. PhaseRep and the Materia Medica section are linked for convenience. In the PhaseRep section, rubrics that belong primarily to the case are only shown, along with general features of the drug. In the Materia Medica section, there are rubrics belonging to all systems. Many of these are well-known, verified keynotes from Boger. This work is ongoing, and eventually, I plan to rework the keynotes taking the most descriptive and confirmed symptoms from the masters. Thus, Boger describes in allium cepa "frequent, violent sneezing", but Guernsey gives (under chest in all-c) "inflates the lungs, raises up, gives a hearty sneeze". Thus, though I may use the former initially, I will over time replace it with the more clearly described / defined rubric.

Beagle Materia Medica - or just Beagle - is a new presentation of the homoeopathic materia medica. It contains 5 primary sections: Generals, Mind, Sensations, Signs and Relations. These are present for every drug. In addition, whatever is characteristic for a drug is given, in a section of its own. Thus, appetite will not be mentioned for Spigelia - whereas Spig has a section on neuralgia. Groupings like Child, Female, Old age in cases of drugs which have a prominent action in these spheres makes it easier to study the drug. Conventionally, weeping before menses would be given in mind. Here, it is given in Mind and in Female. So also, anxious during fever - would be mentioned under both sections, Fever and Mind. This is a simple idea, but essential for quick prescribing.
Beagle in addition, takes you from one remedy to another by comparing them - if you find burning of soles in sulphur, it will also show you that lach or cham have the same. Or the reverse.
Beagle is very much work in progress. Not only in terms of drugs to be added, but even the symptoms for the drugs already present here may be replaced, enhanced, removed etc. We have put it up with 52 drugs to start with, and plan to add about 3-4 new drugs every week.
It is hoped that this way of representing the materia medica will make it easier to highlight the characteristics of a drug, and allow a quick comparison when matching drug to patient.

The website dogtime.com gives this description of a Beagle: "The Beagle is a happy, inquisitive, short-haired hound who makes a great family companion, an eager hunter in the field - or both! Their noses guide them through life, and they're never happier than when following an interesting scent."
We hope our Beagle will perform all the same functions!

The idea is simple - once you have repertorized and selected a remedy, you want to be sure it is the correct one. So you ask questions and look for signs that show a good match. For example, let us suppose the case works out to coffea. How do we confirm it? Most of us know mainly about the sleep disturbances. What else can we ask, or look for? This is easy for some remedies like ars alb. In ars, we may confirm that the patient is very fastidious, has periodic complaints, does not easily trust people, is very careful about health. We could also look for corrugated nails, blackishness of lips or skin anywhere, silvery coating on tongue and so on. To search in the materia medica through the different sections - head, eye, ear, nose, face, generalities, extremities - esp. after case-taking, analysis and repertorization - is a slow process. Here is where this new program comes in: there are a set of questions to ask and observations to confirm a remedy - which, if not present, mean the prescription is not very certain.
More drugs will be added over time to this section... It is work in progress.

The section on Drug Classification & Remedy Relationships will help you to look up related drugs and also quickly look up their key features. Thus, if you get Lachesis high in your repertorization, but it does not seem to cover some prominent features of the case, it might help to look at related drugs, either in the Snake family, or other drugs which have been compared with Lachesis for such complaints.
I have found that if a patient improves at different times with two different drugs from the same family, the similimum might sometimes be found in a third drug from that family. Thus, after giving aloe and trill-p to a patient with good results on different occasions, I looked at the family Liliaceae (to which both belong), and gave the patient Lil-tig with lasting benefit when nothing else seemed to help the patient. One glance at drugs belonging to Liliaceae immediately helped me realize Lil-t was a good possibility, and this was confirmed from looking up the materia medica.
The classification and relationship remedies - including their key features - is quite a task. Our primary focus is not completeness, which is impossible with new drugs & substances being constantly discovered / proved / used empirically and added. Rather, it is on accuracy, and of course, utility within its scope. Further additions are being made steadily, to make it a useful tool in everyday practice.

The plant classification data is taken from the USDA PLANTS Database. Umbelliferae is known also as Apiaceae. The more familiar name has been used here. Some older classifications such as clusiaceae for Hypericum instead of hypericaceae are maintained to show the relationships - hyper and gamb fall in the same subfamily. Phellandrium, or fine-leaved water dropwort is under Oenanthe in the US Dept of Agriculture database. So it's not immediately evident or easy to find. However, with some research, you can confirm the accurate placement of all the plants.
The Animal drug classification is only top-level - and needs work.
Minerals - Most of the information on classification as acids, metals etc. has been taken from Wikipedia, but again, this still needs work.

This quiz is based on H.C. Allen's Keynotes - you are presented with a choice of drugs, only one of which is correct. A keynote may partially apply to other drugs, but only one drug covers the entire keynote. For example, "measles and scarlatina when eruption does not appear; with pale or cold blue, hippocratic face; child will not be covered". The choices are bry, puls, dros, camph. While bry, puls and dros are known remedies for measles, and bry for eruptions not appearing etc., only camph covers the entire keynote perfectly. As in the other quizes, it maintains a record of incorrect answers and offers the option of a ReQuiz of only missed keynotes at the end.

Therapeutics Quiz contains simple combinations of symptoms which should remind one of the drug given as the correct answer. The answer given is not the only remedy which has this combination, but one must THINK of it when such a combination is present. For example, left-sided tonsilitis + stringy saliva should remind one of lachesis. The actual remedy for the case may turn out to be kali-bi or something else, but lachesis should be differentiated / studied.
I conceived this form of quiz primarily as a help for graduates who have struggled both with homoeopathy as well as the English language, being non-native speakers. Whereas today some of these doctors might give belladonna "because of tonsilitis", tomorrow one hopes they will THINK of belladonna when they see a red, congested face along with tonsilitis. It would be a significant advance, and their results would be that much more satisfactory.
In addition to standard materia medicas, I am using books by Dorothy Shepherd, Farrington, Burnett, and even my personal experience when I have repeatedly verified something in practice.

There are few good Online quizzes on the Homeopathic Materia Medica. The purpose of the quiz is to test and refresh users' knowledge of some characteristics and keynotes of the Materia Medica. The sources of the symptoms/rubrics are mentioned:
Kent Repertory
Boericke Materia Medica
Kent's Lectures on materia medica
Guernsey Keynotes of the materia medica
Allen's keynotes
Phatak MM
Boger's synoptic key
Margaret Tyler's drug pictures
More symptoms from Dunham, Cowperthwaite etc. will be added over time.

The quizzes on specific complaints are like a refresher on therapeutics for these conditions. Other drugs could be indicated for a specific symptom in the quiz, but the drug given as the answer would be one of the most prominent drugs for this symptom.

It is possible that a symptom or rubric may occur under different drugs. For e.g., burning of soles is characteristic of both Sulphur and Medo. However, usually the special characteristics are mentioned so that rubrics are sufficiently unique - e.g., burning of soles at night, must uncover them. One thing to remember is that while many drugs have for e.g., burning soles - including canth, cham, med, lach etc. - for these other drugs it is not such a big keynote as in sulphur. So try and guess the drug which has the symptom as an important 'recognizing' keynote. Finally, even though you may lose some points by guessing Medo, when you are told it is Sulph, you actually associate the two drugs in your mind for this symptom. This association is useful.

At the end of every session, you will get a report on the missed rubrics along with the correct drug. You can simply revise this, or copy this into a text file for future reference and study.

It is a tool to study the Materia Medica in the old school "fill-in the blanks" style.

First read the text carefully. As you read, click on each highlighted word after reading it aloud. Read the text a second time, guessing each blanked out word and then see it by clicking on it. If you guess it wrong, repeat the process just for these words.
Study the same remedy from all four authors, and do not study more than one remedy on a single day. Repeat this exercise after a week for each of the remedies studied.

The cases are based on Dr. Prasad's clinical experience and represent observations based on a patients who improved well on a remedy.

This is a group analysis of remedies such as the Acids etc. Features common to the group are given, followed by the specific symptoms of each drug of the family (usually rubrics which it shares with no other drug in that family). The rubrics are arranged in order of importance, not alphabetically, nor according to sections (mind, head etc.) Single symptoms for remedies are not presently included - obviously these are found in no other drug from the family. At a later point we might decide to include these too. For e.g. Nit-ac - "hatred, unmoved by apologies".

The data for this analysis has been mostly taken from Kent's Repertory, with additions from Boger, Phatak, Knerr, and Kunzli, and also some rubrics from modern repertories in the case of lesser known drugs.

Given 2 drugs to compare, the program finds rubrics common to both drugs, and then shows the specific differences in the sub-rubrics. It optionally allows you to enter a rubric word(s) such as "fear" or "fear + dogs"
For example compare Bry and Rhus-t with filter "stomach", and you find both have desire for milk:
    warm milk >> bry
    cold milk >> rhus-t
Thus in a case of fever, where Baptisia and Pyrogen seem to have the same rubric, one could look at subrubrics and differentiate. Or Apis and Cantharis in bladder complaints, and so on.
Sometimes, only one drug is present in the sub-rubric(s). This is useful too, but if you want to look at rubrics where both drugs have subrubrics, put the checkmark on for "both drugs".
For more information, please look at the help section.

High specificity will look for rubrics in which at least one of the drugs being compared is in 3rd grade or is a keynote. This reduces the output, and makes the search faster. Medium Specificity includes all grades for both drugs, but only shows rubrics which have at least 3 starting words in common. Thus, "Mind, Anxiety" will not be displayed, but "Mind, Anxiety, Morning" will be. In the Low Specificity section, everything will be displayed - this is the most detailed view, but also takes the longest time to display.

This is the same as used in KentRep Search, based on Kent's Repertory (3rd Edition). See that section for more details.

This is a quick comparison of peculiar rubrics characteristic of one drug that are not so marked in the other drug being compared. So while Pulsatilla might have a/f grief, it is not a keynote for Puls, whereas it is the main keynote of Ignatia. If you tick the checkbox, then it finds rubrics in which one drug is a keynote, but the other drug is not present at all in Kent's Repertory. We have used Kent's Repertory (3rd Edition) with additions from Boger and Kunzli.

The program compares two or more drugs and gives some possible differences between them. There are additions being made daily, and any support in the form of suggested differences would be most welcome. Of course, a reliable reference source for the distinction would be required. Over the next few years, with steady, reliable additions, this should become a very useful tool for homoeopaths.
Please note: A drug like opium can have both diarrhea and constipation; also sleepiness and sleeplessness. The predominant action is indicated here. Aloe has both constipation and diarrhea. When you select Aloe and Opium, it might show - Aloe: Diarrhea and Opium: Constipation
So one must use the distinctions as mere hints, not absolute indications. However, it should definitely help a prescriber to know that one drug develops its action slowly, such as bryonia, while another like baptisia is very rapid in its action. So also, that one drug belongs to the rhus family, while the other drug is from the solanaceae family. The distinctions mentioned here are diametric opposites.
In comparing drugs, the materia medica gives the prominent features of one drug, which may not be in the other. This is very useful, so differentiation should always be done using the materia medica as well. For example, while Bryonia has fear of poverty and talks of business, Naja has a feeling of having suffered wrong. Naturally, when you compare Bry and Naja here in this program, Distinctions, this difference does not show up. Distinctions is a tool that helps compare two drugs on the same symptoms or region.

DFind is a new way of searching for a remedy in a specific clinical complaint such as cough, fever etc. The main therapeutic indications of a remedy for that condition are put at the start, with other general indications in the body. For example, the main features of a sore-throat in lachesis might be:
1) left-side and left to right
2) difficulty in empty swallowing, or swallowing liquids more difficult than solids
3) worse from warm drinks
Now, lachesis has many OTHER prominent keynotes like loquacity, worse after sleep, thermally hot etc. If you select the section "Sore-throat" and search for loquacity, you may find belladonna too, but in lachesis, what you will see at once is --> (1) left side, l to r (2) difficulty in empty swallowing etc, whereas in belladonna you will see --> (1) right side or right to left (2) bright red, or suppurating tonsils (3) extreme dryness and sense of constriction.
Do look at the "Mind" section also. This is just an experiment, where searching for a prominent mental feature would show you the "General action" of the drugs which have those mind symptoms. For example, if you search for "Cursing, swearing" - which has anac and nit-ac... you would see Eating ameliorates in anac, whereas cracks in mucous membranes might be the symptom shown in Nit-ac.

Keynote Search is a program to find the most prominent drug for a rubric at once in three standard repertories - Kent, Boericke & Phatak combined together.

Please look at the help page for an explanation of the construction and limitations of Keynote Search.

Therapeutics Search is based on the Therapeutics Quiz. The search method is the same as for Keynote Search. This search may be very useful in viewing differences between drugs - e.g. both ars and elat has stretching and yawning with chill, but in ars it is at the beginning, whereas in elat, it lasts as long as the chill lasts. As always, one must note that this is not a "complete reference" materia medica - it is one more way of looking at key features of some drugs.

This information has been taken from various reliable sources, textbooks of medicine, health magazines, books on nutrition, etc. - compiled to serve as a quick reference and reminder. This is an ongoing process. The reason for inclusion of allopathic medication is that many patients come to us using these medicines, and we need to know the consequences, for example, of abruptly stopping steroids.

A statistical analysis of Kent's repertory, 3rd Ed is presented. This shows the number of rubrics for each drugs in the repertory, including the most reliable (grade 2+3), the most important (mind + generalities) etc. There is also a section-wise analysis - how many "Ear" rubrics does Sulph, or Bell, or Mygal have etc. Please read the help for more info.

The articles are ideas and thoughts on homoeopathic practice, and also on how to use the resources on this site better.

It would be great to have a collaborative interaction with experienced homoeopaths, working to make the program and the website more useful. Please send suggestions and also tell us how you might like to contribute to the project. If you find any bugs or typographical errors, please report them. Send us your cases - even if you chose a different remedy instead of the one recommended. All of this can help us fine-tune PhaseRep.

Email us at avsprasad@gmail.com, and we'll get back to you when possible.