Treatment for fever (30): Achinta-shakti rasa

Take ⅛ tola each of mercury and sulphur and rub then together into kajjali (black sulphuret of mercury). Mix with it one fourth tola in weight of the juice of each of the following:—bhringa-raja, kesha-raja, nirgundi, mandukaparni, grisma-sundara, roots of white aparajita, shalincha, thorny megha-nada, and white surjavarta. Mix again with it one fourth tola in weight, each, of copper pyrites and maricha, and rub all these in a stone-mortar with a copper rod, so long as the compound does not turn black. Then, prepare pills one rakti in weight each to be dried in a shady place. This medicine is very beneficial to a patient suffering from fever, perspiring, emaciated and exhausted by fasting, and grown very weak. Three such pills are to be given on the first day, two on the second, and one on the third—these being dissolved with cold water at the time of adminstration. It is necessary to drink thirty two tolas in weight of cold water for every pill taken by the patient on a certain day. Juice of meat of wild animals and such birds as laba (a sort of quail), and cold water should be drunk for the purpose of quenching thirst. Diet, boiled rice mixed with curd prepared from buffalo’s milk and gruel, in due consideration, of course, of the strength and appetite of the patient. In case of giddiness and headache, rubbing of the patient’s head with such oil as “narayana-tailam” is considered salutary.