The remedy finder tool
A remedy finder online does, in a browser, what Kent's Repertory and Boenninghausen's Therapeutic Pocket Book do on paper: it indexes rubrics so the prescriber can repertorise a case without reaching for a five-kilogram volume. Three patterns dominate the market — a classical printed repertory rendered as a web index, a semantic-search interface that returns nearest-neighbour rubrics across phrasing variants, and a case workspace that pairs repertorisation with case-taking and analysis. Similia is the in-market reference implementation used throughout this review.
What a remedy finder actually does
Aphorism 153 of the Organon is unambiguous: grade the case by its striking, singular, peculiar symptoms; repertorise across small rubrics; study the materia medica of the candidate remedies. Kent's hierarchy formalises that mechanic in the plan of the Repertory. Boenninghausen extends it through concomitants. Boger and Vithoulkas refine the prioritisation of generals over particulars.
Software automates the rubric-lookup and remedy-chart steps. Case-grading and materia medica study remain the prescriber's own work — no remedy finder, however clever its embeddings, performs that substitution.
Three patterns of online tool
| Dimension | Static repertory web index | Standalone semantic search | Repertory + case workspace (Similia) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Underlying corpus | One classical text (Kent or Boericke) | Vendor-curated rubric set | Classical repertories plus Murphy, Complete, or Saine depending on edition |
| Lookup mechanic | Alphabetical and hierarchical index | Nearest-neighbour vector match | Hierarchical index combined with semantic search |
| Case persistence | None | None or session-only | Unlimited cases on Pro; three new cases per month on Free |
| AI assist | None | Embedding only | Photo and Notes intake, Live Mode, Live Audio Mode (Beta) on Pro |
| Entry cost | Free or print | Free to low monthly | Free plan; Pro from $219.99 per year |
How the patterns map to a classical case
Practitioners trained on paper use a remedy finder for the rubric-lookup step and the resulting remedy chart, and read the chart through Kent's hierarchy regardless of how the rubrics were surfaced.
Semantic search earns its keep when a patient phrases a symptom in everyday language that does not match a classical rubric verbatim — I feel like everything is far away, my skin burns when I cry — and the embedding returns the nearest rubric across phrasing variants. The classical index alone misses these unless the practitioner already knows the canonical phrasing.
The case workspace pattern shifts the unit of work from a single repertorisation to a longitudinal case. Intake notes, photographs, prescriptions, and follow-up observations live with the chart, so the second prescription is informed by the first encounter without the practitioner re-keying anything.
For the underlying method, see the materia medica study guide and the repertorisation method; to test the semantic and case-workspace patterns end to end, search the free repertory by symptom.
References
- Hahnemann, S. (1842) Organon of Medicine, 6th edition. Translated by W. Boericke (1922).
- Hahnemann, S. (1842) Organon of Medicine, 6th edition, aphorisms 83–104 and 153, on case-taking and the selection of the simillimum.
- Kent, J. T. (1897) Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Lancaster, PA: Examiner Publishing Company.
- Boenninghausen, C. von (1846) Therapeutic Pocket Book. On the use of concomitants in repertorisation.
- Vithoulkas, G. (1980) The Science of Homeopathy. New York: Grove Press. Chapters on hierarchy of symptoms and the practitioner's grading method.
- Similia (2026) Similia pricing and subscription FAQ and Getting started with Similia. Similia Help Centre, https://similia.crisp.help/.