Boenninghausen's Pocket Book online

Bönninghausen's Therapeutic Pocketbook, published in German in 1846 by Clemens von Bönninghausen, was the second major homeopathic repertory after Hahnemann's manuscript work and remains the canonical reference for the Bönninghausen method of repertorisation — a generalisation-first approach that places characteristic modalities, sensations, and concomitants on the primary analytic axis rather than the particular. Three artefacts are in common use today: a public-domain scan of the English-language edition, the modern source-critical restoration by George Dimitriadis, and homeopathic software products that ship the repertory as a searchable built-in source.

What the Pocketbook actually is

Bönninghausen organised the Pocketbook into seven sections — Mind & Disposition, Localisations, Sensations & Complaints, Sleep & Dreams, Fever, Concomitants, and Aggravations & Ameliorations — with a five-grade scheme for remedy weighting. The structural difference from Kent's later Repertory of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica is consequential: a Kentian rubric is typically a particular ("anxiety, evening, in bed"), while a Bönninghausen rubric is a generalisation ("anxiety") combined separately with the modalities "evening" and "in bed" through the concomitant logic. Two practitioners trained in either tradition can reach different remedies on the same case; the choice of repertory is a methodological commitment, not a UI preference.

The five-grade weighting — ranging from a single dot (mentioned once, uncertain) to four dots (characteristic, confirmed) — was Bönninghausen's way of encoding provenance confidence directly into the rubric, so a practitioner knows at a glance whether a symptom rests on a handful of cures or on a broad clinical base. This grading logic prefigures the filtering options now built into modern software: restricting a free online repertory search to "grade 3 and above" applies the same hierarchical sieve Bönninghausen printed in 1846.

Where to read it online in 2026

The source text of the Pocketbook is public domain; the 2010 Dimitriadis restoration is a separately copyrighted scholarly edition with its own translation and editorial apparatus. Software vendors typically bundle one of the public-domain English editions and disclose provenance in the source-selection panel.

How Similia exposes the Pocketbook

Similia ships Bönninghausen's Therapeutic Pocketbook in its free classical-repertory bundle alongside Kent, Boericke, Hering, Boger, and the Ward & Roberts "Sensations As If" repertories. The repertory is queryable through both the classical hierarchical interface and the semantic-search layer; source-pills on each rubric disclose which repertory contributed it, so a practitioner running a Bönninghausen-style case can filter to the Pocketbook and ignore Kentian particulars when desired. LLM summarisation and live transcription sit on the Pro tier; reading and repertorising from the Pocketbook itself does not require a paid subscription. To cross-check a Bönninghausen rubric against materia medica entries in the same session, use the free materia medica search.

Practical recommendation

For a practitioner who wants to read the Pocketbook online and is method-agnostic, an archive.org scan of the Allen 1891 edition is sufficient and free. For source-critical study or for teaching the Bönninghausen method, the Dimitriadis 2010 restoration is the standard reference. For integration into a live case-taking flow — rubric search, repertorisation chart, and modern materia medica cross-reference in one surface — a software bundle is the right path; Similia ships the Pocketbook on its Free plan.

References

Bönninghausen, C. M. F. von (1846) Therapeutisches Taschenbuch für homöopathische Ärzte zum Gebrauche am Krankenbette und beim Studium der reinen Arzneimittellehre, Münster: Coppenrath; English translation by T. F. Allen (1891) The Therapeutic Pocket-book, Boericke & Tafel, Philadelphia.

Dimitriadis, G. (2010) The Bönninghausen Repertory: Therapeutic Pocketbook Method, 2nd edition, Hahnemann Institute Sydney.

Kent, J. T. (1897) Repertory of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica, Ehrhart & Karl, Chicago.

Similia (2026) Which Homeopathic Resources are Included in Similia?, similia.crisp.help, fetched 2026-05-16.