Barley though less esteemed than wheat is more employed in the dietary of the sick. It is chiefly used in the form of saktu or powder of the parched grains. Gruel prepared with saktu is said to be easily digested and to be useful in painful dyspepsia.

Zea Mays, Linn, called makkάi in the vernacular has no Sanskrit name. It is indigenous to America but is now largely cultivated in Behar and Upper India.

The minor food grains are not of any importance in a medicinal point of view. They are used as food by the poorer classes or for cattle.

Old rice is preferred to new as being lighter and more easily digested, but new wheat and barley are considered superior to old. These are said to loose in flavour and taste by long keeping.

Poultices made of rice, barley or wheat flour, with the addition of oil or clarified butter, are applied to abscesses for hastening suppuration.1