Card Repertory

Card Repertory ⇒ Three reasons why Card Repertory is divided:

With above difficulties some physician started preparing their own cards & diaries. These finally gave birth to card repertory.
It is felt that with right kind of card repertory the repertorization would be – faster & easier & surer.

Card repertories have several cards with rubrics written on the top with a group of medicines below.
Different sizes of punches have been used in cards which indicates marks & grades of medicines.
Another which can be introduced in these cards is the evaluation or grade of the remedy – For the particular rubric, all 3 grades can be denoted by the shape of punched hole.
In this card method – one has to do is to select the cards according to the rubrics arranged in the repertory totality & look for common remedies.

Dr William Jefferson Guernsey had made the first card repertory – His card repertory on boils received world wide appreciation & the first card repertory came into use as early as 1888 when Guernsey prepared slips from Boenninghausen repertory.
Dr Field & Dr Boger’s contribution in this card repertory was very useful for practitioners.

It saves time in noting down rubrics & writing down medicines with marks.
It is helpful in busy practice.
It cuts down time needed in calculations & makes it analysis of repertorial result.
It does not require paper work.
A common medicine in all rubrics can be found out by looking through the holes against light.

Most of the card repertories do not represent the rubrics well esp sub-rubrics – thus it is difficult to use finer expressions. It generally is useful only in repertorization by General.
The use of card repertories has taken a back stage after the advent of computer repertories.

Card repertories work on the "punch card" principle – aligning selected cards and viewing common remedies through punched holes under light.
Best suited for cases with strong general symptoms; limited utility in highly particular or pathological cases.
Though largely obsolete today due to digital/software repertories, they represent an important historical step in making repertorization faster and more mechanical.