Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/295

Chap.XX.] injurious under certain circumstances) as described before.

By taking substances which are incompatible to one another as regards their tastes, potencies and digestive transformation, a greedy and intemperate person becomes afflicted with disease and weakness of the sense-organs, and ultimately meets with his doom.

Anything, which being taken enrages or agitates the bodily humours without causing the assimilated food (effete matter) to be evacuated out of the bowels, or is possessed of a taste contrary to, or other than what is necessary for the purposes of vitalization, should be looked upon as the primary source of all bodily distempers.

Diseases, brought about by a food or drink composed of incompatible substances, are amenable to the use of purgatives, emetics, or pacifying (corrective of the deranged humours) medicines; and such a diet, even when found unavoidable, should be preceded by the use of drugs or substances potent enough to neutralise its baneful effect.*

A meat, in the composition of which substances of incompatible virtues and potencies largely enter, fails to develop any distressing or harmful symptoms in subjects who are habitually addicted to it, or who takes it in