The Compendium of Bheḷa 8.1

When one vomits with an empty alimentary canal, vāta is aggravated; / the spleen shifts from its position; therefore, because of the dosha, it destroys life.

Therefore he should drink peyā or maṇḍa, well unctuous and combined with salt, / under an auspicious lunar day, muhūrta, constellation, and favorable karaṇa.

Clothed in white garments, having become pure, and having worshipped the twice-born, / and having honored excellent physicians, then emetic medicine should be given to him.

It should be drunk facing east, in a comfortable windless shelter; / and one should not cause him exertion; a diet of maṇḍa is praised.

This procedure should be performed in emesis and purgation: / three prasthas of decoction, but by Māgadha measure, for the smallest dose.

For a strong man, a strong emetic, not a small one; / four prasthas would be medium, and nine prasthas is the strong dose.

Small, medium, and large are distinct in threefold ways. / For one by whom emetic or purgative has not been taken before,

the intelligent physician should test with a small measure. / Three palas is declared the highest, while the smallest would be one pala;

one should know the medium to be two palas: such is my definite conclusion. / Those who are struck with poison or dermatosis, or afflicted with cough and dyspnea,

and are youthful and strong—he should induce emesis in them with the highest dose. / In the case of medium vitality and age, he should administer the medium dose there;

in the case of the smallest [age], the smallest dose, and likewise when vitality is lowest. / One who administers the reverse will not conquer diseases;

he may produce complications or destroy the patient. / Then he should properly employ a decoction of aṅkola or nimba,

with ghee and these medicines, pleasantly warm or cold: / having ground the fruit of madana together with fruits of devadālī,

fresh leaves of nimba, rock salt, and black peppers, / combined with rock salt, or else with buttermilk scum;

bandhujīva, then pippalīs, madana, and ghee: / combined with that decoction, it is a foremost emetic medicine.

Madana, bandhujīva, śatapuṣpā, and śukānanā, / combined with rock salt, is a foremost emetic medicine.

Leaves, flowers, and fruits of madana, / rock salt, bandhujīva, and rājakośātakīs:

such an emetic recipe is a foremost emetic medicine, / best in cases of poisoning, and praised in cough and dyspnea.

When the emetic has been drunk, but does not make the person vomit, / what medicine should he administer there? How should the physician act?

The physician should show him, one by one, gray hairs / and powders of flies and hairs, and should mix that into maṇḍa.

By this procedure, the person vomits quickly. / This intervention is proclaimed especially for the weak.

Having supported the region of the heart and the back, the person should vomit; / thus, in this treatment, what was drunk moves from its location.

For first he vomits kapha, and immediately thereafter pitta; / at the end of the location of pitta there will be vāta, and then he vomits blood.

Now I shall state the signs of a person who has vomited properly: / lightness, purity in the stomach, clarity of the heart, absence of torpor,

hunger and thirst at the proper time, clarity of the channels, proper digestive fire, / and disappearance of all phlegmatic diseases,

and no bad taste in the mouth: these are the signs of one who has vomited properly. / Nausea, throbbing of the vessels, and tearing pain in the nape of the neck and throat;

excessive eructation, darkness, cough, hiccup, dyspnea, loss of voice, / vāta-fever, dry vomiting, thirst, colic, and sleeplessness;

drying of the mouth and heart, and arrival of blood from injury; / the senses are impaired, and fainting arises in him;

jaw stiffness and tremor arise in one who has vomited excessively. / One with upward bleeding, urinary disorder, abdominal lump, hemorrhoids, fistula-in-ano,

abdominal disease, anemia, heart disease, worms in the gut, / epilepsy, affliction with poison, and swelling and stiffness due to vāta;

irregular fever, erysipelas, and one suffering from vāta-blood, / hemorrhoids, intensely irregular digestive fire, and one afflicted with dermatosis or swelling;

one with upward vāta, similarly one with insanity, one afflicted with piplu or vyaṅga, / and whose bodily elements arising from pitta and kapha are disturbed;

those arising from sannipāta; and women whose genital tracts are corrupted, / women suffering from colic, those with ovarian blood-masses, and those afflicted by saumya:

non-unctuousness and red-tinged skin, lightness of the limbs, softness of the body, / purification of the heart, eructation, and urine, downward course of vāta,

clarity of voice and complexion, desire to eat, suppression of disease, / and kapha remaining in its own place: these are the signs of one properly purged.

Abdomen filled with vāta, occurrence of itching and skin circular patches, / eruption of pustules on the limbs, dizziness, onset of fever,

constriction of the chest, depression of the digestive fire, heaviness in the belly, / and difficult passage of feces, urine, and flatus: these are the signs of one inadequately purged.

Flank pain, prolapse of the rectum, contraction and agitation of the limbs, / increase of vāta, loss of consciousness, anal pain, thirst, fatigue,

emptiness, shattered feeling, and tingling sensations: / these are the features of those excessively purged; colic and swelling arise.

In case of heaviness in one inadequately purged, he should regurgitate whatever is undigested; / but a habituated medicinal drink and non-unctuous enema are for those with hardened stool.

The physician should remove the symptoms of one excessively purged with milk, ghee, and the like; / and he should overcome them with unctuous substances, poultices, and massage. || […] || Second Chapter || […]