An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. II — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1911)

proving the bodily strength of the child. O, thou with a beautiful face, may the child, reared on your milk, attain a long life, like the gods made immortal with drinks of ambrosia". 22.

A child nursed at the breast of any and every woman for want of a nurse of the commendable type, may fall an easy prey to disease, owing to the fact of the promiscuous nature of the milk proving incongenial to its physical temperament. The milk of a nurse not being pressed out and spelled off at the outset may produce cough, difficulty of breathing, or vomiting of the child, owing to the sudden rush of the accumulated milk into its throat choking up the channels. Hence a child should not be allowed to suck in such milk. 23.

The loss or suppression of the milk in the breasts of a woman is usually due to anger, grief, and the absence of natural affection for her child, etc. For the purpose of establishing a flow in her breast, her equanimity should be first restored, and diets consisting of Sili-rice, barley, wheat, Shashtika, meat-soup, wine (Surd\ Souviraka, sesamum-paste, garlic, fish, Kas'enika^ S'ringdtaka, lotusstalk, Viddri-kandi, MadJuika flower, S'atdzari, Nalikd, Aldvu, and Kdla-S'dka, etc., should be prescribed. 24.

Exams nation, etc., of milk :— The breastmilk of a nurse or a mother should be tested by casting it in water. The milk which is thin, cold, clear, and tinged like the hue of a conch-shell, is found to be easily miscible with water, does not give rise to froths and shreds, and neither floats nor sinks in water, should be regarded as pure and healthy. A child fed on such milk is sure to thrive and gain in strentgh and health. A child should not be allowed to take the breast of a hungry, aggrieved, fatigued, too thin, too corpulent, fevered, or a pregnant woman, nor of one in

228 TPIE SUSHRUTA SAMHITA . [Chap. X.

whom the assimilated food is followed by an acid reaction, or of one who is fond of incongcnial and unhealthy dietary, or whose fundamental principles are vitiated. A child should not be given the breast until an administered medicine is assimilated in its organism, lest this should give rise to a violent aggravation of the pharmacological action of the medicine, as well as of the deranged Doshas (Vdyu, Pitta, etc.), and the refuse matters (Malas) of its body. 25.

lYIcmorabIC Verses : — The Doshas iVayu, Pitta and Kapha) of a wet-nurse are aggravated by ingestion of indigestible or incompatible food, or of those articles which tend to derange the Doshas of the body, and hence her milk may be vitiated. A child, fed on the vitiated milk of a woman, vitiated by the deranged Doshas owing to injudicious and intemperate eating and living, falls an easy prey to physical disease, An intelligent physician in such a case should devise means for the purification of the milk as well as of the deranged Doshas which account for such vitiation (inasmuch as the medication of the child alone will not produce any satisfactory effect). 26-27.

Infantile diseases and their Diagnosis : — -A child constantly couches its diseased part or organ and cries for the least touch (by another of that part of its body). If the seat of disease be its head, the child cannot raise nor move that organ and remains with its eyes closely shut. A disease seated in its bladder gives rise to retention of urine, thirst, pain and occasional fainting fits. A retention of urine and stool, discolouring of complexion, vomiting, distention of the abdomen, and gurgling in the intestines indicate the seat of the disease to be its Koshtha (colon). A constant crying (and the child's refusal to be consoled)

p. 229

would signify that the diseased principle (morbiferous diathesis) extends all through its organism. 28.

Treatment of Infants :— Medicines laid