The Materia Medica of the Hindus, compiled from Sanskrit Medical Works c4.s9.15

c4.s9.15

of leaf-gold one tolá, mercury eight tolás, beat into a mass, then add sulphur sixteen tolás, and rub together till the mass becomes black. Rub this mass repeatedly with the juice of the red cotton flower and of *Aloe Indica*, and dry. Now take a bottle with a flat bottom, wrap it with layers of cloth and clay to strengthen it, and dry. Place the mixture of gold, mercury and sulphur at the bottom of the bottle, insert it in a sand-bath up to its neck and cover the mouth lightly with a piece of chalk. Apply heat gently at first. When the process of sublimation commences the heat should be increased, and the chalk-stopper removed. The sulphur now burns with its characteristic blue flame at the mouth of the bottle and a red sublimate collects below its neck. The narrow neck of the bottle is apt to be closed with sulphureous deposits and when there is this tendency, it should be cleared with an iron rod. The sublimation is over in the course of about nine hours. When done the bottle is broken, and the sublimate extracted from its neck in the shape of shining dark red scales. In this process the sulphur and mercury are sublimed in the form of red sulphide, and the gold remains at the bottom of the bottle. The latter may be used again in the preparation of *Makaradhvaja* or converted into powdered gold. *Makaradhvaja* is administered in doses of one grain daily with honey or other suitable adjuncts in nervous debility, weakness of brain from excessive mental labour, habitual costiveness, general debility, female complaints after delivery, spermatorrhoea etc.