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The Materia Medica of the Hindus, compiled from Sanskrit Medical Works c6.s7: Milk and Its Products

The Materia Medica of the Hindus, compiled from Sanskrit Medical Works c6.s7

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Milk and Its Products

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The properties of the milk of various animals are described in great detail by Sanskrit writers. Milk in general is considered cooling, nutritive, strengthening and vitalizing. Cow's milk is pleasant to take and very wholesome. It promotes memory, strength and longevity and increases the secretion of semen. Buffalo's milk is said to be sweeter, heavier and more cooling than cow's milk. It induces sleepiness, spoils the appetite and brings on cold. Goat's milk is sweet, cooling and astringent. It promotes the digestive power and is useful in hæmorrhagic diseases, phthisis, bowel complaints, etc. Ewe's milk is saltish, disagreeable and not easily digested. Mare's milk is saltish, acidulous and easily digested. Ass's milk is saltish, easily digested, and useful in debility and urinary complaints. Camel's milk is light, sweet, saltish, laxative and useful in dropsical affections. Human milk is light, cooling, nutritive, strengthening and useful as a collyrium or wash in eye diseases. All milk except human milk should be taken boiled. Warm milk just as it comes out from the teats is said to be like nectar.

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As an article of diet, milk is considered demulcent, laxative, and especially adapted for children, old men, consumptive people or those reduced by debauchery, for women who are suckling and for patients suffering from chronic fever, mental diseases, dyspepsia, diarrhœa, urinary complaints, ascites and anasarca. A pure milk-diet to the exclusion of every other article (not excepting even salt and water) is often prescribed in the later stages of anasarca, ascites and chronic bowel complaints. Along with this milk diet, some sort of medicine, such as *Dugdha vaṭi*, *Svarṇaparpaṭi*, or *Mána maṇḍa*, is usually prescribed.

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तक्र Takra or butter-milk. Four sorts of butter-milk are described, namely *ghola* or pure butter-milk without admixture of water, *takra* or butter-milk with one-fourth part of water, *udasi* or that mixed with half its bulk of water, and *chhachchhiká* or very dilute butter-milk. The second form called *takra* is used in medicine and as an article of sick diet. It is regarded as astringent, light, cooling, appetizing, nutritive, tonic, and useful in diarrhœa, dysentery, dyspepsia, urinary diseases, ascites, poisoning, etc. It is not suited to the weak, or consumptive nor to those suffer-from fever and nervousness. The habitual use of butter-milk is said to be conducive to health and a preservative against disease.

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दधि Dadhi or curdled milk is prepared by adding some acid or a little curdled milk as a ferment to milk previously boiled. In the course of twelve hours the whole of the milk thus acted upon is changed into a more or less thick, acidulous, jelly-like mass. It is considered agreeable, digestive and cooling, and is much used as an aricle of diet by all classes of natives. Taken to excess it causes biliousness and catarrh. It is useful in fever, diarrhœa, dysentery, urinary disorders and disinclination for food.

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मस्तु Mastu or whey is said to have properties similar to those of curdled milk. In particular it is said to favour the circulation of the animal fluids and to be useful in constipation.

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किलाटक Kiláṭaka or curd of milk (*Vern. chhená, Beng.*) is hard of digestion, but is nourishing, tonic and suited to persons with strong digestive powers.

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सन्तानिका Santániká or cream is also hard of digestion but nourishing, agreeable and demulcent.

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नवनीत Navanita or butter is tonic, astringent, invigorating, stomachic and useful in phthisis, piles, facial paralysis, etc. It agrees best with the old and young.

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घृत *Ghrita* or clarified butter is much used both as an article of diet and in pharmacy. Clarified butter obtained from cow's milk is considered superior to that prepared from the milk of the buffalo and is preferred for medicinal use. Clarified butter is considered cooling, emollient and stomachic. It increases the fatty tissues and mental powers, improves the voice, beauty and complexion and is useful in eye diseases, retained secretions, insanity, tympanites, painful dyspepsia, ulcers, wounds, etc. It is the basis of a form of medicinal preparation called *ghritapáka* already described in the introduction, (see page 14).

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पुराणघृत *Purána ghrita*. Clarified butter more than ten years old, passes by this name.¹ It has a strong pungent odour and the colour of lac. The longer this old butter is kept the more efficacious it is said to prove as an external application. Clarified butter a hundred years old is often heard of. The richer natives always have a stock of old *ghrita* of this description which they preserve with care for their own use as well as for distribution to their poorer neighbours. I have seen some specimens of old clarified butter which were quite dry and hard and nearly inodorous. They looked more like some sort of earth than an animal substance. Old clarified butter is used externally. It is first repeatedly washed with cold water, and then rubbed with it till it is reduced to a soapy frothy fluid which is used as a liniment. It is regarded as cooling and emollient and is much used in nervous diseases such as insanity, epilepsy, neuralgia, paralysis, cephalalgia and asthma, in rheumatic affections, stiff joints, burning of the body, hands or feet, affections of the eyes, etc.²

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¹ उन्मादहृतो दृष्टः वा पुराणं वैकं घृतम्। डयगन्धं पुराणं स्याद्- वर्षस्थितं घृतम्। लाक्षारस निभं शीतं प्रपुराणमतःपरम्। चक्रः।

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² शतधौत घृताभ्यङ्गः शीतवातादि सेवनम्। शीतस्पर्शश्च संसेव्याः सदा- दाहार्त्ति शान्तये। चक्रः।

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The following treatment is recommended for reducing the temperature of the skin in strong fever. The patient's body should be anointed with an emulsion of sandal wood and of old clarified butter that has been washed a hundred times in cold water. He should then enter a tepid bath for a short while. His bedding should be made of the leaves of *Nelumbium speciosum* (*kamala*).¹

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¹ शिताम्बुः सानुशतयश्च विलोडितेन गव्येनचन्दन युतेन घनेनदिग्धा । दाहज्वरी सकमलोत्पलमालधारी क्षिप्रंविशेत् सलिलकोष्णमल्पकालं । काञ्जिकाद्र्ध पटेनावगुण्ठनं दाहनाशनम् । दर्पः ।

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BILE. Sans. पित्त, *Pitta*.

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The bile of the buffalo, wild boar, goat, peacock and *rohitaka* fish (*Cyprinus Rohita*), is used in medicine, either singly or in combination under the designation of *Pancha pitta* or the five biles. Bile is considered laxative and is chiefly used in soaking powders intended for being made into pill-masses.

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*Udakamanjari rasa*.² Take of mercury, sulphur, calcined borax, and black pepper each one part; sugar and the bile of *rohitaka* fish, four parts each; rub them together for three days and make into six-grain pills. These are given with ginger juice in recent bilious remittent fever. If there is much heat of head, cold water should be applied to it. For other preparations containing bile, see under serpent poison, page 278.

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² उदकमञ्जरीरसः । सूतं गन्धकञ्च शोषणञ्च सर्वैस्तुल्याः शर्करा मत्स्य-पित्तैः । भयोभयो मर्दयेत् विरात्रं वल्लोदेयः शृङ्गवेर द्रवेण । तोयेशीतं भोजनैस्तक्रभक्तन्नाकाद्यं पथ्यमेतत् प्रदिष्टं । अङ्गैवोमं हन्ति सद्यज्वरन्तु पित्ताधिकं मूर्ध्नि तोयञ्च दद्यात् । रसप्रदीपः ।

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गोरोचना *Gorochaná*, or the concretions found in the gall-bladder of the ox, are considered cooling, aromatic and useful in abortion and diseases supposed to be caused by evil spirits. *Gorochaná* is sometimes given to infants in small doses as a laxative. It enters into the composition of some medicines for skin diseases.

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URINE. Sans. मल, *Mutra*.

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The properties of the urine of various animals, such as the cow, buffalo, goat, sheep, horse, elephant, ass, and camel are minutely described. Of these, cow's urine is much used both internally and externally, in the purification of various metals and in the preparation of oils, decoctions, etc. It is described as laxative, diuretic and useful in constipation, suppression of urine, colic, anasarca, jaundice, leprosy and other skin diseases. Goat's urine is sometimes given internally as for example in the prescription quoted under *Nardostachys jatamansi*. In congestive fever with constipation, flushed face and headache, an ounce of fresh and warm cow's urine is given as a domestic medicine. It is sometimes given as the vehicle for administering castor oil, (see page 231). Cow's urine is used in the preparation of various medicines for jaundice, anasarca and allied diseases. The following is an illustration.

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*Punarnavá mandura*.¹ Take of *Boerhaavia diffusa* (punarnavá) *Ipomœa Turpethum* (trivrit), ginger, long pepper, black pepper, *báberang* seeds, *devadáru* wood, plumbago root, *pátchak* root, the three myrobalans, turmeric, wood of *Berberis Asiatica*, (*dáruharidrá*) root of *Baliospermum montanum*, (*danti*), *Piper Chaba* (*chaviká*), indrajava seeds, root of *Picrorrhiza Kurroa* (*katuki*), long pepper root and the tubers of *Cyperus rotundus* (*mustaka*), equal parts; iron rust in weight equal to twice that of all the other ingredients; mix them together and boil the mixed powder in eight times its weight of cow's urine till the watery part is evaporated. Dose, about twenty-two grains, in jaundice, ascites, anasarca, enlargements of the abdominial viscera, painful dyspepsia, etc.

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¹ पुनर्नवामण्डूरम्। पुनर्नवात्रिवृच्छटी पिप्पलीमरिवानि च। विडङ्गं देवकाष्ठञ्च चित्रकं पुष्कराह्वयम्। त्रिफलां द्वे हरिद्रे च दन्तीञ्च चविक-नथा। कुटजस्य फलं तिक्तापिप्पलीमूल सुस्रकम्। एतानि समभागानि मण्डूरं द्विगुणं ततः। गोमूत्रेऽष्टगुणे पक्त्वास्थापयेत्स्निग्धभाजने। पाण्डु-शोथोदरानाह मूलाथैः क्रिमिशूलनुत्। भावप्रकाशः।

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*Marichádya taila*. Take of mustard oil four seers, cow's urine sixteen seers, aconite eight tolás, orpiment, realgar, black pepper, milky juice of *Calotropis gigantea* (*arka*), root of *Nerium odorum* (*karavira*), root of *Ipomœa Turpethum* (*trivrit*), colocynth root, *Aplotaxis auriculata* (*kushtha*), turmeric, wood of *Berberis Asiatica* (*dáruharidrá*), *devadáru* wood, and red sandal wood, each four tolás, and prepare an oil in the usual way. This oil is said to be useful in leucoderma, chronic prurigo and other obstinate skin diseases.¹

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¹ मरिचाद्यं तैलम् । मरिचालशिखाऽर्कपयोऽरिजरटातिह्वत् । शक्रद्रु-विशालाकुडनिशायुगदारुचन्दनैः । कटुतैलात्पचेत्प्रस्थं ह्यत्रैर्विपच्यमान्तैः । सगोमूत्रं तदभ्यङ्गाच्छ्वित्रविनाशनम् । सब्बेष्वापि कुष्ठेषु तैलमेतत्प्रश-स्यते । चक्रदत्तः ।

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