Indian Medicine (Medicin), translated by C. G. Kashikar c12.24

c12.24

The disease viṣūcikā, viṣūcī, is perhaps to be included among these, although it is dealt with in the medical works together with alasaka and similar conditions (cf. § 53). According to Wise, Dutt, Hoernle and AHr, viṣūcikā is "the cholera in its sporadic form"; yet there are other conceptions also¹. It is Vedic and appears in the Vājasaneya Saṃhitā as the result of too much use of Soma. In medicine also it is attributed to immoderateness. In other literature also mention of this disease is not rare. Thus in Rājatarangiṇī (edn. Stein) 8.88 it is mentioned as an example of a fatal and devastating disease. Car 2.3 mentions viṣūcikā along with alasaka while dealing with the epidemiology. The name viṣūcikā ("in both the directions" i. e. from mouth and anus) is to be derived from the evacuation from above and below. The Medical works, however, trace it to sūcī ('needle') because in this disease the vāta pricks the limbs as if with needles. Symptoms : Swooning faint, diarrhoea, vomiting, thirst, colic, giddiness, crookedness of hands and feet (being the meaning of the word udeṣṭana according to the commentators), yawning, heat, change of colour of the skin, trembling, pain in the heart, and severe headache. The following five are the bad and fatal complications : Sleeplessness, uneasiness, trembling, retention of urine and senselessness. If the teeth, nails and the lips become blackish, consciousness is gone, there is severe vomiting, the eyes sink, the voice becomes feeble, all joints become loose, then the patient dies (Su 6.56. 3-11; MN 65 f.; Bhāv 2.2.24 f.; Vang 196). Khallī i. e. gouty pain in hands and feet (= udeṣṭana) is mentioned as a common accompaniment; similarly pramilaka—drowsiness of eyes and pipāsā—thirst are also mentioned as accompaniments (Vr 6.60-62 along with comm.). The simultaneous occurrence of diarrhoea and vomiting is, however, considered as a special characteristic (Car 3.2.12-13).