Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/466

362 action, nor its being used up by the weakened and conquered original distemper. It is thus stored up in the organism for the working of fresh mischief. A medicine, which proves stronger than the digestive function of a patient, impairs his digestion, or takes an unusually greater length of time to be digested and assimilated into his organism. A medicine, which is stronger than the physical stamina of a patient, may bring on a feeling of physical languor, fits of fainting, loss of consciousness, delirium, etc. Similarly, an overdose of a cleansing (cathartic) medicine may work similar mischief. On the other hand, medicines of inadequate potencies, and accordingly unequal to the strength of a disease, as well as medicines in inadequate doses fail to produce any tangible effect. Hence medicines of adequate potencies should be alone administered in adequate doses.

Authoritative verses on the subject:-A prudent physician should prescribe a mild purgative for a patient enfeebled by the action of the deranged and accumulated bodily humours and laid up with a disease in which such a cleansing (cathartic) or emetic remedy is indicated. The same rule should hold good in the case of a patient enfeebled through causes other than physical distempers, and whose bowels are easily moved, and in whom the fecal matter, etc. are found to have been dislodged