The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c7.s2.80

c7.s2.80

¹ *sāsrāvakaṇḍūparidāhakābhiḥ pāmānukābhiḥ piḍakābhiḥ ūhyālsphoṭaiḥ sadāhair ati saiva kacchūḥ sphikpāṇipādaprabhavair nirūpyā.—Súsr, Nid., V, 11 12.* The eruptions of the vesicles at the places of the choice of the itch, which are the very ones indicated by Suśruta, are actually the very important symptoms of the itch, but unlike the groove and the swell of the epiderm above the parasite not described by Suśruta and whose importance has been definitely established among us only in the 19th century, they are not pathognomonic. It is true that the *pāmā* and the *kacchū* sometimes appear to be mixed up. The Tibetan version of Vāgbhaṭa's *Aṣṭāngahṛdaya* (Nid., XIV, 9) renders *pāmā* as *gyan pa* which, according to Jaeschke (*Dict.*, see the word), denotes a skin-disease, hereditary and non-contageous, therefore, something else than the itch. But in the Sanskrit-Tibetan dictionary of Tse-ring-oung-gyal (published by J. Bacot, Paris, 1930) *gyan pa* is rendered both as *pāmā* and as *kacchū* (variant of *kacchū*). The Tibetan version of Vāgbhaṭa, ib, *Cik.*, XIX, 84, again employs *gyan pa* for explaining *kacchū*, although the *Mahāvyutapatti* (Sakaki edn.) gives *pāmā*—*gyan pa* and *kacchū*—*khyi rṅo*, "itch of dog".