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

The comparatively smaller number of drugs which I have mentioned (under the heads of Ropana, Sodhana, etc., in the present chapter) from fear of prolixity, may be increased in combination with other drugs or substances of similar virtue, (digestionary transformation and potency, etc.) without any apprehension

* ."^ee Chap. XIX, — Sulra-Sthanam.

t The six causes of an ulcer are Vayu, Pitta, Kapha, Sannip^ta, S'onita aud Agantu.

X The eight seats of an ulcer are Tvak, Mansa, S'ird, Snayu, Sandhi, Asthi, Koshiha and Marma.

§ The five symptoms of an ulcer are dae to Vata, Pitta, Kapha, Sannipata and Agantu, The symptoms due to S'onita being identical with those due to Pitta, are not separately counted,

II The sixty medicinal measures and remedies are those described before in the present chapter.

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of doing any mischief thereby. Recipes consisting of rare or a large number of drugs or ingredients, should be made up with as many of them as would be available in the absence of all of them, as mentioned in the present work, A drug belonging to any particular Gana or group if separately described as nonefficacious to any specific disease, should be omitted whereas a drug not belonging to a group may be added to it if it is elsewhere laid down as positively beneficial thereto. 11 5-1 17.

Upa.Clra.va. : — 'The distressing supervening symptoms which are found to attend a case of ulcer, are quite different from those of an ulcer-patient. Those which confine themselves solely to the ulcer are five in all — smell, colour, etc., and those which are exclusively manifest in the patient are fever, diarrhoea, hiccup, vomiting, fainting fits, aversion to food, cough, difficult breathing, indigestion and thirst. The medical treatment of ulcers though described in detail in the present chapter, will be further dealt with in the next chapter on Sadyo-Vrana. 118-120.

Thus ends the first Chapter of the Chikitsita-Sthanam in the Sus'ruta Samhita which deals with the treatment of the two kinds of ulcer.

CHAPTER 11.

Now we shall discourse on the medical treatment of recent or traumatic wounds or sores (SadyovranaChikitsa). i,

Metrical Texts; -The holy Dhanvantari, the foremost of the pious and the greatest of all discoursers, thus discoursed to his disciple Sus'ruta, the son of Vis'vdmitra. 2.

Different Shapes of Sores :— I shall describe the shapes of the various kinds of Vrana (sores or wounds) caused by weapons of variously shaped edges in the different parts of the human body. Traumatic ulcers have a variety of shapes. Some of these are elongated, others are rectangular, or triangular, or circular, while some are crescent shaped, or extended, or have a zigzag shape, and some are hollow in the middle like a saucer, and lastly some have she shapes of a barley corn (bulged out at the middle). An abscess or a swelling, due to the several Doshas and which spontaneouly bursts out, may assume any of the aforesaid forms, while the one effected by a surgeon's knife should never have a distorted or an improper shape. A surgeon thoroughly familiar with the shapes of ulcers is never puzzled at the sight of one of a terrible and distorted shape. 3 — 5.

Physicians of yore have grouped these variously shaped traumatic ulcers under six broad sub-heads, such as the Chhinna (cut), Bhinna (punctured or perforated), Viddha (pierced), Kshata (contused), Pichchita (crushed), and the Ghrishta (mangled or lacerated) according to their common features and I shall describe their symptoms. 6.

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266 THK SUSHRUTA SAMIIITA. [Chap. II.