Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/184

80 surgical instruments. Alkaline potions or any other internal use of alkalis, should be prescribed in cases of Gulma (abdominal glands), Ascites, loss of appetite, indigestion, flatulent distension of the abdomen with suppression of stool and urine, urinary calculi, stone in the bladder, internal abscesses, worms in the intestines and hœmorrhoids, as well as for subduing or eliminating any sort of poison from the system.

Alkalis or alkaline potions will prove positively injurious to a patient laid up with fever or hæmoptysis, to a man of bilious temperament, to an infant, or to an old man, and they will work similar mischief in a weak person, or in a patient suffering from vertigo, insensibility, syncope and Timira (darkness of vision). These preparations of Alkalis should be made in one and the same way by filtering; and we reserve the full description of this process for another occasion.

Alkalis for external application are prepared in three different potencies; the mild, middling and strong (extremely irritant). A physician wishing to prepare such an alkali, should first purify his body and mind, and observe a fast on a day in autumn marked by auspicious astral combinations. Then having ascended the brow of a hill, he should select a full grown Ashita-mushka (Ghantá párul) tree of middle age, and growing on soil recommended in the works on pharmacy and not anywise affected. Then having