Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/215

Chap.XIV.] Now it may be asked, since the Rasa is naturally transformed into semen in.the course of a month, what is the use of administering medicine which has a stimulating effect upon the organs of generation (Vajikaranam.) The answer is, that such medicines out of their own specific potencies and virtue help the speedy conversion of Rasa into semen and its profuse emission [on the desired occasion] like purgatives aiding the drastic evacuation of the bowels.

Again it may be asked, how is it, that semen is not found in an infant? Since perfume in a flower-bud is imperceptible to the organ of smell you may as well ask whether there is any perfume in it or not. But what does not exist in a thing can not be evoked in the subsequent course of its development. As the perfume in a flower-bud lies latent in its early stage of growth but becomes patent only with the growth of its seed organs, so semen or catamenial blood lies in a potential state in a male or a female child, and appears with the growth of beards and mustaches, or with the enlargement of the breasts, uterus and vaginal canal and the appearance of pubic hair.

The same Rasa, originated from the assimilated food, serves only to maintain the vitality in the old and spontaneously decayed subjects owing to an exhausted state of the inner vitalising principle, natural to old age.