This section is from the book "The Sushruta Samhita", by Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna. Also available from Amazon: The Sushruta Samhita.
Ghritam or clarified butter is Saumya or cooling in its essence and potency, and is mild and sweet. It slightly increases the slimy secretions of the organs, and acts as a lubricating moistener, proving efficacious in Udavarta insanity, epilepsy, colic, fever (chronic) and distention of the abdomen from the suppression of stool and urine (Anaha). It is appetising and subdues the Vayu and the Pittam. It improves memory, intelligence, complexion, voice, personal beauty, amiability of features and the principle of strength (albumen, Ojas) in the body.
It is vitalising, rejuvenating, spermatopoietic and heavy. It improves the eyesight, increases the quantity of bodily Kapham and the duration of life. It is sacred and is regarded as an appeaser of adverse fate. It eliminates poison from the body and wards off the invasions of monsters and demons.
Clarified butter made of cow milk is sweet in digestion, and cool in its potency. It subdues the deranged Vayu and Pittam, and serves to eliminate poison from the system. It improves the eyesight and possesses excellent tonic and invigorating properties. Cow-butter, in its clarified state, is the best of all kinds of butter. Clarified butter made of the milk of a she-goat is appetising (Dipanam), eye-invigorating and strength-increasing. It proves a wholesome diet in cases of cough, dyspnoea and consumption (any wasting disease), and is light in digestion. Clarified butter prepared with the milk of a she-buffalo is sweet, heavy in digestion, and proves remedial in haemoptysis. It is cooling and increases the quantity of bodily Kapham, and subdues the deranged Vayu and Pittam. Clarified butter made with the milk of a she-camel is anti-toxic, appetising and pungent in digestion. It subdues the deranged Vayu and Kapham, and proves curative in oedema, worms in the intestines, cutaneous affections, abdominal glands, and ascites. Clarified butter made with the milk of a ewe is light in digestion. It does not enrage Pittam, and proves beneficial in cases of rigour, phthisis (Shosha) and in diseases due to the action of the deranged Vayu and Kapham, as well as in those which affect the female organs of generation. Clarified butter made with the milk of a mare (lit: - any female mammal with unbifurcated hoops) is light in digestion, heat-making in its potency, and astringent in taste. It is appetising, anuretic, and subdues the action of the deranged Kapham.
Clarified butter made with the milk of a woman is possessed of eye-invigorating virtues, and should be regarded as the prototype of divine ambrosia on earth. It is light (in digestion), anti-toxic, stomachic, and constructive. Clarified butter prepared with the milk of a she-elephant is astringent in taste, and brings about a suppression of stool and urine. It is bitter, light, and stomachic (Agnikara), and proves curative in cutaneous affections (Kushtha), poisoning, worms in the intestines, and derangements of the Kapham.
Butter churned out of thickened milk and clarified (Kshira Ghritam) is astringent, and proves beneficial in eye-diseases, haemoptysis, epileptic fits, and vertigo.
The condensed upper stratum of clarified butter (Ghrita-manda) acts as a laxative, cures aching pain in the vagina, ears, eyes, or in the head, and is recommended to be used as an errhine, an enema or as eye-drops.
Old clarified butter is laxative and pungent in digestion. It subdues the three deranged bodily humours, and proves curative in epileptic fits, obesity, insanity, abdominal dropsy, fever, chemical poisoning, oedema, hysteria, and in aching pain in the vagina, ears, eyes or head. It is appetising and is recommended to be used as eye-drops and enema, and for sternutatory purposes.
Old or matured clarified butter proves curative in Timira (Gutta Serena), dyspnoea, catarrh, fever, cough, epileptic fits, and Kushtam, in cases of poisoning, mental aberration, and hysteria ascribed to the influence of malignant planets. Clarified butter matured from eleven to a hundred years is called the Kumbha Gritam (Pitcher clarified butter), while that, which is older than the one of the preceding kind, is called the Maha GLritam (the great clarified butter). Kumbha Ghritam is said to be possessed of the mystic potency of warding off the invasions of monsters, while the Maha Ghritam is highly efficacious, sacred, and specifically curative in the disease known as Timira. It acts as a prophylactic against the malignant influences of all evil spirits and baneful planets, and should be taken by men in whom Vayu predominates. It subdues the deranged Kapham, and improves the strength and intellect.
 
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