Page:Sushruta Samhita Vol 2.djvu/65

chap. I.] not bear the least touch (Hyperaesthesia) and a sort of pricking, piercing pain (pins and needles) is experienced in those regions. The legs become withered or atrophied and lose all sensibility to touch. In a case of Pitta Raktam, the legs become extremely red, hot, soft and swollen, characterised by a sort of indescribable burning sensation. In a case of Kapha-Raktam, the legs become swollen and numbed. The swelling assumes a whitish hue and feels cold to the touch, and is accompanied by excessive itching. In the Sannipatika or Tridoshaja form of Dushta-Raktam, the legs exhibit symptoms, which are respectively peculiar to all the three preceding types. 41 — 43.

Premonitory Symptoms:—In the incubative stage of the disease the legs perspire and become cold and flabby, or (on the contrary the local perspiration is stopped and the legs become hot and hard. More-over, a pricking pain is experienced in the affected parts which are marked by complete anaesthesia, heaviness, or heat, and discolouring of the skin. The disease creeps in either from the lower extremities, or in some cases, first affects the upper ones and gradually extends all over the body like an enraged rat-poison.

Prognosis:—The form of the disease in which the skin of the part lying between the instep and the knee-joint becomes abraded or spontaneously bursts open, exuding pus and blood, attended with loss of strength (Prana) and flesh, curvature of the fingers, and eruptions of nodules, should be regarded as incurable; while a case of one year's standing admits only of palliative measures. 44.

The enraged or agitated Vayu, while coursing swiftly through the Dhamanis (nerves) of the body, shakes it in quick succession, and a disease, (exhibiting such