284 SANSKRIT MAXIAIA HSDICA. 



19 Qhrita or clarified butter is much used both as an artiole of 

 diet and in pharmacy. Clarified batter obtained from cow's milk 

 is considered superior to that prepared from the milk of the 

 buffalo and is preferred for fhedioinal use. Clarified butter is 

 eonsidered cooling, emollient and stomachic. It increases the 

 fatty tissues and mental powers, improves the voice, beaut j and 

 complexion and is useful in eye diseases, retained aeoretions, 

 insanity, tympanites, painful dyspepsia, jricers, wounds, etc. It 

 is the basis of a form of medicinal preparation called ghritapdka 

 already deseribed in the introduction, ( see page 14 ), 



tpj^l^T Purdna ghrita. Clarified butter more than ten years 

 old, passes by this name. 1 It has a strong pungent odour and the 

 solour of lac. The longer this old butter is kept the more effi- 

 cacious 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 clari- 

 fied butter # which were quite dry and hard and nearly inodorouB. 

 They looked more like some sort of earth than an animal substance. 

 OW 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 

 oling and emollient and is much used in nervous diseases such 



iii t 



as insanity, epilepsy, neuralgia, paralysis, cephalalgia and asthma 

 in rheumatic affections, stiff joints, burning of the body, hands o? 

 feet, affections of the eyes, etc. 2 



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 eandal wood and of old 

 clarified butter that has been washed a hundred times in cold 



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