Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/521

Chap.XLIV.] Shana weights of powdered Triphala pulp, and three Shana weights of powdered Vidanga, Pippali and Yavakshara, mixed and pounded together, should be licked with honey and clarified butter, or they should be made into a confection with treacle for purgative purposes. The medicine does not entail any strict regimen of diet and conduct. It is one of the most effective remedies (of our pharmacopoeia) and proves curative in Gulmas, enlargement of the spleen, cough, Halimakam (chlorosis), non-relish for food and in diseases due to the action of the deranged Kapham and Vayu. A wise and intelligent physician should administer purgative medicines through the vehicles of clarified butter, oil, milk, Madya (wine) cow's urine, meat essence, or through the expressed juice of drugs, or through articles of food, or in forms of electuary. The six kinds of purgatives are the milky exudations, expressed juices, pastes, decoctions, cold infusions and powders of medicinal drugs or herbs, and each of these preceding factors should be deemed stronger than the one immediately following it in the order of enumeration.

Thus ends the forty-fourth Chapter of the Sutrasthanam in the Sushruta Samhita, which treats of the choice of purgatives.