Susruta Samhita - Mandhata Global

Chap. X.] SARIRA STHANAM. 229
would signify that the diseased principle (morbiferous
diathesis) extends all through its organism. 28.
Treatment of Infants :—Medicines laid
down under the head of a particular disease should like-
wise be prescribed in the case of its appearance in a
child or an infant ; but then only the remedies of mild
potency and those which do not tend to disintegrate the
bodily fat and Kapha should be given in adequate
doses (according to age, etc.) as mentioned here-
after and administered through the vehicle of milk and
clarified butter, to a child living on milk alone, while the
nurse also is to take the same medicines as well.* In
the case of a child fed both on milk and (boiled) rice
{KshirdnnddaX.c, living on both solid an i liquid food) the
medicine should be administered both to the child and
its wet-nurse. In the case of a child living on solid food
only, decoctions (Kashaya) etc. should be given to the
child and not to the nurse. Medicines to the quantity of
a small pinchful may be prescribed for a suckling who
has completed its first month of life. Kalkas (medicated
pastes) should be given to a child fed on both milk and
rice to the size of a stone of a plum-fruit (Kola), and the
dose for a child fed on rice (solid food) only being to
the size of a plum (Kola).t 29.
* Milk and clarified bulter being congenial to the constitution of
infants should be used as vehicles for drugs in their cases but, these are
not necessary in the case of the nurse.
j- According to several other authoriiic.=, the dosage in the case of
children is to be regulated as follows :
In the case of a child, one n:\onth old, drugs should be given in the form
of an electuary through the vehicle of milk, honey, syrup, clarified butter,
etc.— the dose being one Rati (about two grains) at first, and gradually
increased by a Rati a month, till it completes one year. After this time the
dose is to be one Masha (about twenty grains) for each year of age till
he is fifteen.
This dosage, however, does not apply in the present age.—Ed.