An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. I: Sutrasthanam — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1907)

blood stand in danger of being attacked* with an incurable disease peculiar to their genus, and which is known as Indramada. The leeches should then be put into a new pitcher, and treated as before laid down, after they had fully emitted the sucked blood.

An ulcer incidental to an application of leeches should be rubbed with honey or washed with sprays of cold water, or bound up with an astringent (kashaya) sweet and cooling plaster, according to the quantity of blood removed from the part.*

Authoritative verse on the subject : — The physician who is fully conversant with the habitat, mode of catching, preservation and application of leeches, can well aspire to cure the diseases which yield to them or in which their use is indicated.

* In case of full and proper bleeding (Voga) the ulcer should be rubbed with clarified butter technically known as the Shatadhautam (lit: hundred times washed) Ghritam (clarified butter), or a piece of cotton, soaked in the same substance, applied as a compress over the part. The ulcer should be rubbed with honey in a case of insuflicient bleeding, while it should be washed with a copious quantity of cold water if excessive bleeding (Ati-Yoga) should set in. Similarly in a case marked by the absence of any bleeding at all (Mithya-Yoga) a sour, sweet and cooling plaster should be applied over the ulcer.

Thus ends the thirteenth Chapter of the Sulrasthinam in the Sushruta Samhita which treats of Leeches and of how and which to use.

p. 14

CHAPTER XIV.

Now we shall discuss the Chapter which treats of blood (Shonita-Varnaniya- mad hya'yam).

The food of a human being, which is usually composed of the five fundamental material principles, admits of being classified under four different heads [as, drinks and edibles, etc.]. It has six different tastes or is of two [cooling or heat-making] potencies, or consists of eightfold properties, [viz. hot, cool, dry, expansive, slimy, mild, sharp, etc.] and of a variety of other active or efficacious virtues. The food is fully digested with the help of the internal heat and ultimately assimilated in the system, giving rise to lymph chyle (Rasa) which is extremely thin or attenuated in its consistency and which forms the essence of the assimilated food.*

The lymph chyle (Rasaj, though running through the whole organism, has its primary seat in the heart, whence it flows through the twenty- four vessels which branch off from the latter (heart) to the remotest parts and extremities of the bod5\ Of the aforesaid twenty-four vessels, ten are up-coursing, ten are down-coursing, and four have a lateral direction. The Rasa or the

* It is free from all sorts of impurities such as fecal matter, etc., and permeates the minutest vessels and capillaries.

Chap. XIV. ] SUTRASTHANAM.

p. 107

lymph chyle, thus flowing out of the heart, constantly soothes, maintains, and irrigates b}^ transudation the body, and further contributes to its growth, and supports life owing to the dynamical effects of causes which lie beyond the ken of human understanding. The nature and course of this lymph chyle, which runs through the whole system, can be inferred from the growth, attenuation, or other modified conditions of the bod5\

Now it may be asked, whether the Rasa, which permeates the entire body and limbs, and which by flowing through different chambers (visceras) of the body is thus in constant contact with the excreta and other morbid humours, is of a cooling (Saum3'a) or heat-making (Agneya) potency ?

The question may be answered by stating that, since the Rasa or lymph chyle is a fluid, and possessed of lubricating, vitalising, moistening, and nutritive (lit : — supporting) properties, it must be included within the class of Saumya (cooling) substances. The Rasa, though a Saumya fluid, obtains its characteristic pigment (Ragam) in its passage through the spleen and liver.

Authoritative verses on the subject:—The Rasa or the lymph chyle, coloured through the effect of the healthy normal d5''eing heat of the body, obtains the name of blood. The Rasa is transformed into the catamenial flow in women which commences at the age of twelve and ceases at fifty.

I08 THE SUSHRUTA SAMHITA'. [ Chap. XIV.

Catamenial blood, though originating from Rasa which is of a cooling potency^, is fiery or heat-making (Agneya) in its character ; and the fecundated or impregnated o\'um (Garbha) is both cooling and heatmaking in its properties on accoimt of its partaking of the nature of both the menstrual blood (ovum) and semen which are respectively possessed of the two preceding virtues. Hence several authorities hold the blood to be identical with the life blood or with the vital principle of a living organism, and being such, to be the product of the five fundamental material principles (Panchabhautikam).