Treatment Of Dushyodara

In a case of Dushyodara, the patient should be treated without giving any hope of a positive cure. Purgatives with clarified butter, cooked with the expressed juice of the Saptalá and S'amkhini, should be first administered (continuously) for a fortnight or even a month; or clarified butter, cooked with the milky juice of the Mahá-vriksha, and with wine and cow's urine, should be similarly used as a purgative. A Kalka made up of the roots of the As'vamáraka, Gunjá and Kákádani mixed with wine (Surá), should be given after the bowels had begun to move freely. As an alternative, a Krishna-Sarpa (black lance-hooded cobra) should be enraged to bite a sugarcane and this piece of sugarcane should be given to the patient to chew (and suck); or the fruits of creepers (Valli-phala) should be used (in the preceding manner); or poisonous * roots and- bulbs should be prescribed, whereby the disease may be cured or may take a different turn. 7.

Memorable Verse

A case of abdominal dropsy (Udara) of whatsoever type should be presumed to have its origin in an aggravation of the bodily Váyu and an accumulation of faecal matter in the bowels; hence frequent use of Anulomana (purgatives, etc.) is recommended in this disease. 8.

* If this be not done, the patient is sure to die; but it is not certain whether he would get any relief from this treatment. It being, however, possible in some cases to save the life of a patient by the application of this medicine, it should be used, as the last resort with the permission of the king. - Dallana.

General Treatment

Now we shall describe a few general medicinal compounds (which may be used with advantage in cases of Udará). They are as follows; - Castor oil with milk or with the urine of a cow should be taken for a month or two. No water should be taken during the period, or the patient should forego the use of water and all other food, but drink only the urine of a she-buffalo and (cow's) milk; * or he should live upon the milk of a she-camel alone, foregoing the use of rice and water and submit himself to a course of Pippali for one month in the manner described before (under the treatment of Mahá-Vátavyádhi, † or take the oil of the Nikumbha with Saindhava-salt and powdered Ajamodá dissolved in it. The said oil (of Nikumbha), cooked with a hundred Pátra weight of the expressed juice of A'rdraka and S'ringavera (fresh ginger), should be applied in the event of there being any Sula (colic pain), due to the action of the deranged and aggravated Váyu. Milk, boiled with the expressed juice of S'ringavera (fresh ginger), should be taken. A paste-compound of Chavya and S'ringavera, or a paste-compound of Sarala, Deva-dáru and Chitraka (with milk), or a paste-compound of Murangi, S'álapami, S'yámá and Punarnavá (with milk), or the oil of Joytishka seed, mixed with milk, Svarjiká and Asafoetida, should be administered to the patient. 9.

He should take Haritaki with treacle, or a thousand Pippali soaked (twenty one times) with the milky juice of the Snuhi plant tin the manner of Bhávaná saturation), should be gradually consumed. Powdered Pippali and Haritaki should be soaked with the milky juice of the Snuhi plant (and dried in the sun). Utkáriká should now be preapared with this compound and given to the patient. 10.

* The milk here, says Dallana on the authority of Jejjata, should be buffalo's milk. But, according to Vágbhata and S'ivadása, the commentator of Chakradatta, cow's milk should be used. - Ed.

† The Pippalis shohld be taken with milk only in the present instance,