Chapter CLIII - The Nidanam of Aversion of food

Dhanvantari said:—Now hear me, O Sushruta, discourse on the Nidanam of Arochakam (Non-relish for food). The several morbific diatheses of Vayu, Pittam, and Kapham, by finding lodgment in the tongue and the heart, give rise to three different forms of Arochakam. The fourth kind owes its origin to their concerted action, while the fifth is usually brought about through a perturbed condition of the mind. The patient complains of an astringent taste in the mouth in the Vayu-origined, of a bitter taste in the Pittaja, and of a sweet taste in the Kaphaja type. In the type due to grief, fright, or anxiety, all things seem vapid and tasteless. The vital Udana Vayu flings up the morbific principles from the bottom of the stomach, and thus carried up into the cavity of the mouth, they give rise to waterbrash with a saline taste in the mouth, annihilate all desires for food, and bring a host of other discomforts in their train. The patient suddenly feels a pain at the back and about the umbilicus, and the ingested food is thrown up in the side of his stomach, causing him to belch out a scanty, frothy, and astringent chylous matter.

In the Vayu-origined type of this disease there are loud eructations, and painful and violent vomitings after that, bringing cough, parchedness of the mouth, and hoarseness in their train. In the Pittaja type, the patient vomits a kind of greenish, or yellowish, blood-streaked acid matter of a bitter and astringent taste, resembling alkaline water—thirst, fainting, and a burning sensation in the body being its further characteristics.

In the type due to the action of the deranged Kapham, there is expectoration of thick glossy, yellowish, ropy mucous of a sweetish saline taste, attended with a copious salivation, and horlipilation. Symptoms such as, swelling of the mouth, somnolence, cough, and nausea with a sweetish taste in the mouth, are found to supervene. In the type due to the concerted action of all the three morbific principles of Vayu, Pittam and Kapham, the patient finds no pleasure even in the most congenial topics, which, according to Vishnu, ought to be discussed in a gentle assembly. All sights and sounds are hateful to him. The disease is aggravated with the aggravation of any of the abovesaid morbific principles in the body. The type due to the presence of worms in the intestines, or to the ingestion of any stale or unwholesome food, manifests colic, shivering, and nausea, etc., as its specific indications.