The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medicine: Its Origins and its Greek Parallels c8.177

c8.177

The word *pāmán*, which figures in the Avesta as in the Veda and denotes a “cousin” of fever, has already been studied (*supra*, p. 52). The disease known as *kumbhīkā* in the *Atharvaveda* is also related to skin-diseases, concerning which the context gives us no information, but which is well-known in classical medicine. Like *alajī*, it is a morbid form which can be met with at the penis as also in the eyelids. In the first case¹, it is compared to the stone of the rose-apple fruit, in the second it is said thereof that “the vesicles resembling the grains of Pistia stratiotes L., which arise on the eyelids, provoke swelling: when they burst, they are the vesicles *kumbhīkā*”.² The same hymn of the *Atharvaveda* mentions along with *kumbhīkā* *dūṣīkā* which denotes “conjunctival secretion”.