This section is from the book "The Sushruta Samhita", by Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna. Also available from Amazon: The Sushruta Samhita.
The Váyu, aggravated (by its specifically exciting factors and principles) and dislodged from its natural scat or receptacle in the body in consequence thereof, courses upwards and finds lodgment in the regions of the head, heart and temples. It presses upon those parts and gives rise to convulsive movements of hands and legs, or at times bends them down.
The patient lies with his eyes closely shut, or stares with a sort of fixed or vacant gaze, the eyes remaining fixed or immovable. The patient loses all perception, and groans. Respiration becomes difficult, or symptoms of temporary asphyxia and unconsciousness set in. Consciousness and a normal condition of the organism return with the passage of the enraged Váyu from the heart, while on the other hand the patient relapses into unconsciousness simultaneously with the envelopment of the heart with that enraged and Kapha-saturated Váyu. This disease is called Apatantrakah and is ascribed to the action of the enraged Váyu surcharged with the deranged Kapham. 56.
The local Váyu, agitated through such causes as sleep in the day time, reclining with the neck on an uneven place or pillow, gazing upward for a considerable length of time, or looking aside in a contorted way, and enveloped in the deranged Kapham, gives rise to the disease known as Manyá-stambha (wry neck or torticollis). 57.
Pregnant women, mothers immediately after parturition (Sutiká), infants, old and enfeebled persons are most prone to fall victims to this disease *. It has been also known to result from excessive haemorrhage or loss of blood The local Vayu, extremely enraged or aggravated by continuous talking in an extremely loud voice, chewing of hard substances, loud laughter, yawning, carrying extremely heavy loads, and lying down in an uneven position on the ground, finds lodgment in the regions of the head, nose, upper lip, chin, forehead and the joints (inner cornea) of the eye, and produces the disease called Arditam by distorting the face.
The neck and half of the face longitudinally suffer distortion and arc bent. The head shakes the power of articulating speech is lost, and the eyes arc distorted into a variety of shapes. The portions of the neck and the chin, as well as the teeth on the affected side become painful.
* The portion of the text included within asterisks has been rejected by Jejjadáchárryya as spurious.
The disease generally commences with shivering, horripilation, cloudiness of vision, upcoursing of the bodily Váyu and anaesthesia, a pricking pain in the affected locality, numbness or paralysis of the jaw-bone or of the cervical muscles of the neck. Physicians, conversant with the AEtiology of diseases, call it Arditam (Facial paralysis). Prognosis: - A case of Arditam, appearing in an extremely enfeebled or emaciated patient, or exhibiting such symptoms as a winkless vision, inarticulate speech which hardly seems to come out of the throat, excessive palsy of the face, as well as the one of more than three years' standing, should be deemed as incurable. 58.
 
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