Village fever treatments

• Musari, indicated by a white coating on the tongue, can cause fevers and coughs. They say that for musari jwaram (musari fevers) no injection works.
     o Banyan and reppali (Holarrhena antidysenterica) milk can be licked as is or with salt and jeera. When my daughter was about fever years she had a fever and the people checked her tongue. It was coated white. They said it was ‘pindi-pindi’, meaning a powdery coat. This is musari. I was advised to take the child to the reppali tree for three consecutive days as soon as I woke up. I was told to make a notch on the tree with a knife, and give the child the milk which seeps out to lick. After having the milk we were to circle the tree thrice, and bow to it. Slippers are not to be worn while circling even though the area around the tree is thorny. The patyam was to avoid sugar for three days. One child, Vishnu, said that she had said to the tree ‘na patyam neeku’ (‘my patyam is yours’), and then was absolved of the patyam and could eat everything. Most reppali trees in and around are badly scarred with knife nicks.The milk of the banyan tree is also used similarly.
     o Kuntaginjeera leaf (Eclipta prostrata) or bokkini leaf juices are taken internally.
     o A chutney of the bokkini fruits is taken internally.
     o Pariki (Ziziphus oenoplia) katti or stem bark is to be rubbed on a pot or a stone and the paste licked.
    o Adavi gummidi fruits are boiled, crushed and taken with cumin and black cumin. A hot water infusion of adavi gummidi leaf can be mixed with cumin and black cumin and taken.
    o The white coating on the tongue is rubbed with the chikudu leaf coated with castor oil to remove it.  

• juice of thummi (Leucas aspera) leaves is taken with salt.
• it is said that thummi (Leucas aspera) flowers, kukka tulasi, tulasi (Ocimum sanctum), bokkini leaf and kuntagingeeraaku (Eclipta prostrata) with black cumin should be taken.
• it is said that skin of red chillies is to be rubbed on the tongue.
• Annasamy says leaves of adavi gummidi are to be mixed well in water and the slimy water drunk.
• Lakshmamma says that sadda koodu or bajra gruel is good for fevers. In earlier times people used to take this for fevers. Now the hybrid bajra is what is available, which is not as effective. These days bajra gruel is given to cows to treat khurram. 

• Crab rasam is made by pounding crabs and extracting its juice by boiling. This is strengthening, and addresses fevers.

• Jyothi told me that her fever got cured by just drinking warm kanji water drained out from cooked rice. For fevers people agree that kanji is the best diet. 

• Children sometimes get fevers because ‘the child got scared’ (‘bhayapadi pooyindi’). Children have come and told me that they got scared and then developed fever. The child is then taken to Bhagavantiah for mantrams.