Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/383

Chap.XXIX.] while talking with the physician, or shaking his hands, back or head, or taking hold of or placing the hands of the physician in his own, or on his breast, or interrogating the physician with an up-turned face, or pressing his own limbs, when he is interrogated by the physician in return, should be considered as unfavourable signs.

The patient, in whose house a physician is not duly honoured, can never rally. The due honouring of a physician leads to a speedy recovery. A messenger of good omen forebodes the favourable termination of a disease, while the contrary is indicated by a messenger of the opposite type. Hence a physician shall carefully observe the ominous character of a messenger (despatched to seek his aid).

Dreams:—Now I shall describe the dreams, which either being dreamt by the patient, or by his relations, portend fatal or a successful close of the malady. The patient, who dreams of going towards the south on the back of an elephant, or on that of any carnivorous animal, or of riding on a boar or on a buffalo, or sees himself carried towards the quarter by a dark woman with dishevelled hair and clad in a blood-red garment—laughing and dancing, soon meets his doom. A dream by a patient that members of vile castes have been drawing him southward, or that ghosts or anchorites have been embracing him, or that