An English Translation of the Sushruta Samhita, Vol. III: Uttara-tantra — trans. Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna (1916)

TIIK SUSHRUTA SAMHITA. [Chap. XXXVIIL]

hot milk and rubbed with clarified butter. It should then be restored to its proper place and, being pasted with Ves'avâra, should be duly bandaged. 13 — 14.

Diet. — SurfiC, Asava, Arishta, (wines of medicinal drugs) should be prescribed according to the Dosha involved in each case and the patient should be made to take the expressed juice of garlic (Lashuna) every morning and her diet should consist mainly of milk, meat-soup, etc. 15.

We have already described the nature of the medical treatment and the remedial agents to be respectively pursued in and prescribed for diseases of the semen, menstrual complaints, affections of the mammae, impotcncy, cases of false presentation of child and diseases during the period of pregnancy and motherhood, and all those may be employed with equal benefit in these diseases peculiar to the female sex. Other diseases (such as fever etc.) which may arise from immature delivery should be treated in the manner described in the respective treatment of those diseases in the Uttara Tantra. 16,

Thus ends the thirty-eighth chapter of the Uttara Tantra in the Sus # iuta Samhitd which deals with the therapeutics of the female organ o generation.

Here ends the Kaumdrabhritya Tantra,

CHAPTER XXXIX.

Now we shall discourse on the (symptoms and)

medical treatment of Fever (Jwara-Pratlshe* dha). i.

The Divine Dhanvantari, who in his first incarnation arose out of the primordial Ocean with a pitcher of ambrosia on his head, (when it was churned by the gods and the demons) and who conferred immortality on Indra and his brother celestials, was thus interrogated by his disciples, Susruta and others “You have instructed us, O, you, the foremost of physicians, the subject on all the concomitant distressing symptoms (Upadrava) of Ulcer iVrana). Now let us have a general outline and detailed description of the concomitant distressing symptoms, physiological and pathological conditions e.g. fever, dysentery, cough, etc. showing in an ulcerpatient. An ulcer attended with many a concomitant symptom Upadrava) may be cured only with the greatest difficulty and such concomitant symptoms appearing in an emaciated and weak ulcer-patient, take time to be subdued because of the loss of his Doshas and Dh£tus. Hence illumine us fully, O sir, on those diseases affecting the whole body (and not localised in any particular limb or organ) observed by the holy sages of yore, and instruct us the nature and application of the therapeutic agents^ to be employed in their cure”. 2.

Description Of Jwara To the query of the disciples, the divine physician, Dhanvantari replied as follows : — “First I shall discourse on the nature and origin of fever for it is the king of all bodily distempers

IfO THE SUSHRUTA SAMHITX. [Chap-JOCm*

in as much it affects the whole orgainsm at a time. It was begotten by the fire of wrath of Rudra, and afflicted the whole animal world or organic kingdom. The different names by which it is designated amongst the different kinds of animals are well known. Its presence is perhaps an indispensable condition under which a creature can come into being or can depart from this * life, and hence it is called the lord of ailments and none but a god or man can bear the heat of fever. Men may become gods by virtue of their good deeds (Karma) in life and would again revert to humanity (mortality) at the close of their blissful effects, and it is this divine or godly element in man that enables him to bear this abnormal heat of fever whereas the lower animals are simply lost under its influence. 3.

Definition and Classification of Fever : —The disease which is marked by the arrest of the flow of perspiration, by increased heat (of the skin), by pain all over the body and by a sense of numbness in the limbs, is called Jwara (fever). Cases of fever of which the causes are numerous, are divided into eight types according as they are brought on through the derangement of the three bodily Doshas separately, or through that of any two of. them in combination or through their concerted action, or by * any extraneous causes * 4-3.

When the Doshas of the body are deranged by their respective aggravating causes and in the hours of their specific dominance^ they bring on an attack of fever by

* There can be three cases of fever d\ie to the derangement of the three Doshas separately, three cases from the derangement of two of them at a time and one case only from the concerted action of the three Doshas These are the seven cases while that due to an extraneous cause is the eighth.