Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 1.djvu/658

554 Any beverage resorted to at the commencement of a meal tends to produce a gradual emaciation of the frame; the one taken during the course of a meal guards against both its thinning and corpulency, while the one drunk at the close of a meal serves to greatly add to its growth and rotundity. Hence, drinking at meals should be most judiciously determined and taken with the greatest forethought and discretion. The food carried down into the stomach of a person unused to such liquids long retains undigested and resists being converted into chyme or being digested, and becomes a positive source of discomfort. Hence, the use of an after-potion is imperatively obligatory on all human beings, except those suffering from dyspnoea, cough, ulcerative endocarditis ( Urahkshata), ptyalism, aphonia, and from diseases affecting the part of the body situated above the clavicles.

After the use of an after-potion, a long walk, a lengthy conversation, singing, sleeping and reading should be refrained from, in order that the imbibed potion may not affect the stomach, and (aggravate the bodily humours) which taking lodgment about the regions of the throat and chest may give rise to a secretion of mucous, impair the appetite, develop such distressing symptoms as vomiting etc., and produce many other distempers as well.

The lightness or heaviness of a food stuff does not