Lesson 2 of 12
Navigating Kent's Structure — Sections, Subsections, and Rubric Hierarchy
How Kent's Repertory is organized internally, and the skill of finding the right rubric quickly.
Kent organized his repertory in a specific anatomical and functional order. Understanding the order makes lookup fast.
The major sections in Kent's order 1. **Mind.** Mental and emotional symptoms. 2. **Vertigo.** Dizziness. 3. **Head.** Headache, head sensations, scalp. 4. **Eye, Vision.** Eye symptoms, then visual symptoms. 5. **Ear, Hearing.** Ear symptoms, then auditory. 6. **Nose.** Nasal symptoms. 7. **Face.** Facial symptoms, including discoloration, expression. 8. **Mouth, Teeth.** Oral, then dental. 9. **Throat, External Throat.** Throat sensations, then external neck. 10. **Stomach.** Including appetite, thirst, nausea. 11. **Abdomen.** Abdominal symptoms. 12. **Rectum, Stool.** Rectal symptoms, then character of stool. 13. **Bladder, Urine, Kidneys, Prostate, Urethra.** Urinary system. 14. **Male, Female.** Reproductive system symptoms. 15. **Voice, Larynx, Cough, Respiration, Chest.** Respiratory system progression. 16. **Back, Extremities.** Musculoskeletal. 17. **Sleep, Chill, Fever, Sweat.** Time-of-day and general physiological patterns. 18. **Skin.** Skin symptoms. 19. **Generalities.** Symptoms affecting the whole patient (worse in cold, better in motion, etc.) and modalities that don't fit other sections.
How rubrics descend from broad to specific Within each section, rubrics start with very general categories and descend toward specifics. In the Head section: - "Pain, Head" (very general) - "Pain, Head, forehead" (more specific) - "Pain, Head, forehead, right" (more specific) - "Pain, Head, forehead, right, morning" (more specific) - "Pain, Head, forehead, right, morning, on waking" (very specific)
A symptom like "right-sided morning headache that I notice when I first wake up" can be repertorized at any of these levels. The lower levels (more specific) have fewer remedies but only the remedies that have been documented at that level. The higher levels (more general) have more remedies but the symptom is less differentiating.
The rubric-grade and rubric-coverage tradeoff A specific rubric like "Pain, Head, forehead, right, morning, on waking" might have only 8 remedies in it. If your patient's symptom genuinely matches that level of detail, those 8 remedies are highly relevant.
A general rubric like "Pain, Head, morning" might have 80 remedies. The 80 is too many to differentiate from, but if you intersect "Pain, Head, morning" with another rubric from elsewhere in the case (say, "Thirst, evening"), you can narrow to the remedies appearing in both — which might be 5 or 6.
Either approach can work. The choice depends on the case.
How to find a rubric you need Three approaches:
**Anatomical browsing.** If the patient has a head symptom, you go to the Head section, then drill down. This is the most reliable for symptoms with clear anatomical location.
**Sensation browsing.** Kent organizes many rubrics by sensation (burning, throbbing, stitching, cramping, pressing). Within the Head section, you can browse by the quality of the pain rather than by location alone.
**Modality browsing.** Modalities (worse from cold, better from motion, etc.) often appear in the Generalities section if they affect the whole person, or under specific symptoms if they affect specific complaints. "Worse from motion" as a general modality lives in Generalities; "Pain, Head, worse from motion" lives in Head.
**Index search (in software).** Modern software allows full-text search of rubric labels. Type "stitching" and you get every rubric whose label includes the word stitching. This is much faster than browsing for many cases.
Cross-references and synonyms Many rubrics in Kent are duplicated or referenced from multiple locations. "Anger, ailments from" appears under Mind as a generic rubric, but specific consequences of anger (anger followed by stomach upset, anger followed by sleeplessness) appear under their respective sections. Knowing this prevents missing a relevant rubric.
Modern repertories add many cross-references; the Synthesis repertory in particular is well-cross-referenced. With Kent alone, you sometimes need to check two or three plausible rubric locations to find the symptom you are looking for.
What's in "Generalities" The Generalities section contains symptoms that affect the whole patient rather than a specific organ: - Modalities at the general level ("worse before storms," "worse from cold draft," "better after sleep") - General time aggravations ("worse 3-4 PM," "worse midnight") - Lateralities ("worse on right side" as a general pattern) - General sensations ("burning generally, throughout body") - Reactions to food and drink ("worse from coffee," "worse from milk")
Generalities is often the most useful section for narrowing remedy choice, because general symptoms (the modalities affecting the whole patient) are typically peculiar and strongly characteristic of specific remedies.