This section is from the book "The Sushruta Samhita", by Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna. Also available from Amazon: The Sushruta Samhita.
"It is the potency of a drug that cures a disease". The potency is administered best
* That Hahnemann's theory of disease was long before foreshadowed by Sushruta, will appear from the above extracts from his works. Hahnemann observes that, when a person falls ill, it is only this spiritual self-acting vital force, everywhere present in the organism, that is primarily deranged by the dynamic influence of a morbific agent inimical to life - Orgenon, when the physical or chemical properties of a drug are annihilated. This is best performed by subjecting it to heat or pressure. In the medicated Ghritas or oils of our pharmacopoea, which are prepared by successively boiling or cocking them with drug-decoctions, we cannot even detect the trace of any of its component drugs, but still we know how potent and efficacious they prove in the hands of our Vaidyas. When Sushruta formulated the process of preparing medicinal oils and Ghritas, and laid down the use of Shatadhautam Ghritam (clarified butter, a hundred times washed with water in succession), Sahasrapak Tailam (medicinal oil, successively cooked a thousand times), or Kumbha-Ghritam (clarified butter, a hundred years old) it may be fairly said that he was in sight of the principle of drug-dynamisation.
Ayurvedic physicians practically recognise two different sets of principles in the domain of practical therapeutics, which may be stated in the terms of their western colleagues as Laws of Similars and Contraries.* This apparent contradiction has been fully accounted for and explained in the writings of the latter day commentators, but it does not fall within our province to enter into these disquisitions. In addition to those, Sushruta, in common with the Acharyayas of his time, never fails to emphasise the value of psycopathy in those forms of mental or nervous distempers for which Mesmer rightly now receives so much honor. Since the creation of man, the touch of the "Saintly" has been credited with the virtue of curing the sick; and Avesha (auto-hypnotism) and Samadhi (higher phases of clairvoyance) have achieved many miracles in the art of healing in India, which was the, first country where it was first successfully practised for the welfare of man.
* Similar in character to the exciting factors of a disease - Similar in character to the Esse of a disease - Similar in character both to the exciting actors and Esse of a disease.
Contrary in character to the exciting factors of a disease.
Contrary in character to the Esse of a disease.
Contrary in character both to the exciting factors and Esse of a disease.
Madhava Nidanam Ch I. V. 8.
All kinds of treatment may be grouped under two heads such as Samshodhanam and Samshamanam, i.e. either the body should be cleansed (Samshodhitam) of the morbific diathesis with the help of emetics or purgatives, or steps should be taken to restore the deranged Vayu, Pittam and Kapham to their normal condition with the help of proper medicinal drugs without resorting to any eliminating process. But in cases of inflammation, Sushruta enjoins that, instead of any Samshamanam remedies, diaphoresis should be first resorted to. In cases where counter-irritants are indicated and in parts which are directly accessible, leeching and cauterisation should be practised with a due regard to the season of the year and the requirements of the case. We find in his Samhita a detailed account of the several species of leeches with their habits and habitats.
 
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