This section is from the book "The Sushruta Samhita", by Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna. Also available from Amazon: The Sushruta Samhita.
Now we shall describe the process of preparing an Ayaskriti (iron compound). Thin leaves of steel should be plastered with the (five officinal kinds of) salts and heated in fire a of dried cow-dung. When red-hot, they should be immersed in a decoction of Triphalá and the drugs of the S'ála-sárádi group. The above process should be repeated sixteen times in succession after which they should be heated and burnt in a fire of Khadira wood. When cooled down, the iron foils should be pounded into fine powder and passed through a piece of thick linen. The patient should be made to take this powder with honey and clarified butter in an adequate dose suiting his capacity. After the digestion of the medicine, he should take such a meal as is not hostile to hisparticular disease and is devoid of salt and acid articles. The use of a Tula measure of this medicinal iron preparation in the above manner leads to the recovery of Kushtha, Meha (urinary complaints), obesity, oedima, jaundice, insanity and epilepsy and makes the patient live for one hundred years. The use of each additional Tula weight of the preparation adds a century to the duration of the user's life. This is the mode of medically preparing all kinds of Loha (zinc, copper, lead and gold). 11-12.
A ball of iron (weighing fifty Palas) heated and made red-hot in a fire of Khadira wood should be cooled by immersing it in a cauldran (Droni), made of (green) Palás'a wood and containing (five-hundred Palas of)Svarasa (expressed juice * of Trivit, S'yámá, Agnimantha, Samkhini, Kevuka, Lodhra.Triphalá, Palás'á and Sims'apá. The iron mass should be thus heated and cooled twenty one times in succession; finally the iron ball should be immersed and boiled in the expressed juice of the foregoing drugs over a fire of cow-dungs. It should be removed from the fire when only a quarter part of the liquid would remain. It should now be filtered and the mass of iron should be again heated in the fire mixed with the same liquid and boiled again; when the cooking is nearly complete, (it should be removed from the fire and) a pulverised compound of the drugs included in the Pippalyádi group together with honey and clarified butter each weighing double the quantity of the iron mass or ball should be mixed with the same. When cooled down, this preparation should be preserved in a well-sealed iron-pitcher. The medicine, thus prepared, should be given to the patient according to his capacity but not less than a Sukti (half a Pala) or a Prakuncha measure (one Pala). After the digestion of this medicine, a diet should be given to the patient determined by the nature of his disease. This is called the Aushadha Ayaskriti and it cures even the incurable types of Kushtha and urinary complaints (Meha) reduces obesity, impairs oedima and improves the impaired digestive functions.
* Old and experienced physicians explain "Svarasam" to be the decoction as well. Gayavása says that a decoction of one Drona weight of the drugs, boiled in four Drona weight of water and reduced to its quarter part should be taken. Dallana says that if the expressed juice of the drugs be not available, then a cold infusion of one Adhaka weight of the powdered drugs should be taken,
It is specially efficacious in cases of phthisis (Rája-Yakshmá). A proper and regular use of this remedy increases the duration of life to a hundred years. 13.
 
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