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THE SUSHRUTA SAMHITA.
[ Chap. XXIII.

Just as a tree, that has grown old and that has spread its roots deep into the soil, can not be uprooted, so a disease can not be eradicated that has gained in strength and maturity with the process of time, and that has gradually invaded the different essential principles of the body. A disease, which, having been neglected at the outset, has run on to one of a lingering or persistent type by invading the successive elements of the body, and has thereby gained in strength and intensity, baffles medicines, (of tested and marked efficacy), just as malignant astral combinations tend to nullify potent incantations.

Symptoms of cleansed healthy ulcers:—An ulcer, not belonging to any of the above said types, may prove easily amenable to the curative efficacies of medicines. In other words, an ulcer of recent origin is easily uprooted like a tender sapling of recent growth. An ulcer, which is unaffected by any of the three deranged bodily humours, and which assumes a dark brown hue along its edges, and is characterised by the absence of any pain, pustular eruptions or secretions, and which is of an even or of an equal elevation throughout its length, should be regarded as cleansed (asepsised or healthy), and divested of all morbid matter or principle (Shuddha-Vrana).

Symptoms of Healing Ulcers:—An ulcer, which is dove-coloured (yellowish dusky), and is