Part 18 - Iron variety (d): Mandura iron

If iron is heated red hot, and hammered, small pieces throw themselves out of it, and scatter themselves all round. These particles of iron are called mandura. The mandura of a particular iron possesses a part of the properties of the latter. Mandura also may therefore he used in medicines. Munda Iron is ten times as efficacious as mandura. Tikshna iron is hundred times as efficacious as munda, and kanta is hundred thousand times as efficacious as tikshna. Kanta iron should therefore be used for the purpose of destroying diseases and senility. In the absence of kanta iron, gold or silver is to serve as a substitute.

Varieties of mandura.

Mandura from munda iron is slightly coloured, heavy, and soft; that from tikshna iron is like a collyrium of mixed ingredients, is much heavy, and has a smooth surface. The mandura which comes out of kanta iron is of grey colour, coarse, heavier than other manduras, with half its surface devoid of hollows, and it presents a sectional surface as glazy as silver, when cut into two pieces.

Fitness of mandura for me in medicines.

(1) The mandura which should be used in medicines should be of the following description:—It is devoid of hollows, heavy, soothing, strong, of more than a hundred years’ standing, and collected from an old village.

(2) Mandura of over hundred years old is the best; that of over 80 years is of moderate efficacy, and that of sixty years’ standing is the least efficacious. Mandura less old than the last-mentioned is like poison and should be avoided for medicinal purposes.