20 SANSOIT -MATERIA MEDICA 



or heat may be applied by enolosing hot medicinal substances or 

 pastes within a cloth bag and applying the latter to the skin. 



4. ?3^f <? Bravasvedtu This means the hot hip-bath and hot 

 bath with warm water or decoctions. Milk, broth, oil. kdnjifot 

 etc., may also be used for baths. The patient should sit in a tub 

 with the fluid up to his navel, and which should also be poured 

 over his body from above the shoulders, so as to bathe him 

 thoroughly. The tub should be made of wood, silver, copper or 

 iron, of square form and twenty-six fingers in measurement in all 

 directions, that is in height, length and breadth. After the appli 

 cation of heat, the patient should take a hot bath, eat light food 

 and keep himself covered in bed. If too much heat has been 

 applied, and the patient suffers from pain in the joints, thirst, 

 langour or giddiness, then he should be treated by cooling appli- 

 cations. The region of the heart, scrotum and eyes should be 

 heated with great care and to a mild degree only. 



^TOT^ Dhumapdna or inhalations. Tapers or pastilles made 

 of medicinal substances are set fire to, and their fumes inhaled 

 through a tube by the mouth or nose. Pastilles for inhalation are 



thus prepared : a reed, half a cubit in length, is smeared or laid 

 over with a paste of the drugs to be used, to two-thirds of its extent 

 and is dried in the shade. When dry, the reed is withdrawn from 

 the paste, leaving it in the form of a hollow tube. This is smeared 

 with clarified butter and lighted. The lighted extremity is 

 introduced into one end of the inhaling tube and the fumes drawn 

 in by the other end through the mouth or nose, as the case may 

 be, and emitted again through the mouth. In affections of the 

 throat and chest, inhalation through the mouth is recommended, 

 while in diseases of the head, eyes or nose, the fumes are drawn 

 in through the nose. The tube for inhalation may fee metallic or 

 made of wood or ivory. Its length varies from two cubits to half 

 a cubit, aud its calibre should be sufficient to allow a large pea to 

 pass through. The shorter tubes are lised in administering 

 expectorant and emetic fumes. Inhalations are useful in cough, 

 asthma, catarrh, pain in the neck or head, etc. They may be used 

 for soothing the air passages, for promoting discharge from them, 

 for the relief of cough, or for inducing vomiting. Another form 

 of inhalation, called Samana, is recommended to be used daily 



