Local treatments for body pains

Body pains

• Sinkesari (Delonix elata)  leaves boiled in water give a red decoction. Ground cumin and pepper corns are fried in castor oil, and this decocotion is poured in. Tamarind juice is added and this rasam is removed after a boil. This is had with rice.  This causes purgeing.  To stop the purges hot water is drunk and a hot water bath is taken. Usually the hot water bath is taken after three in the afternoon. This treatment is good for all vaayu conditions. 

• Sinkesari bark is also pounded, soaked in mother’s milk and given to infants.  It can also be boiled in castor oil and given. If it is not digested properly, or if there is no vaayu in the body, it can cause many loose motions. Otherwise there would be just one or two loose motions, sometimes only the next day. 

• People sometimes have a fry of sinkesari leaves as a dish with rice. It is good for all.

• Vaayu naraalakku addresses bodyaches by causing a purge. It can be had with castor oil, or even as a fry.

Joint pains

• For knee pains with swelling, warmed gilledu (Calatropis gigantica)  leaves smeared with castor oil are applied. Gilledu leaves are also stacked, cut crosswise and pasted on the cut side with turmeric. They are then pressed on a heated potshard with cow urine sprinkled on them, and pressed on the joint. Castor oil is also rubbed on the knee nand tamarind leaves stuck on it. Fomenting with sinkesari leaves is also done. Ganjeru leaves are also rubbed on the knees. Eashwaramma said that bonthi gemudu milk or pulla gemudu milk mixed with turmeric are applied. Sarojamma said she also applied lime and tamarind pounded together.

• Ganneru (Nerium indicum) leaves are used to foment the painful knees.

• Bandaara (Dodonia viscose) leaves, with the stalks and twigs removed, are applied for swelling and pain of joints.

·        For heel  pain, ‘midiyaalu noppi’, Chinapaapakka went to Dhanakka and she immersed both her feet in water and scrubbed the heels with donda (Coccinia cordifolia) leaves. There was a sandy deposit at the base of the water and her heel pains ceased. Dhanakka does this treatment.

·        For heel pains a paste of kuppamenti (Acalypha indica) leaf is also applied.

• For heel, neck and joint pains kootu kalabandha (Aloe vera) root is heated in the fireplace, pounded, twisted and used to foment.

• The hoof of cattle is also used to foment with.

• For a catch in the neck Dhanakka massages with castor oil thrice in all. Sankaranna also treats with mantrams.

Chronic and old pains resulting from old injuries (paatha noppilu)

After eating meat and drinking soup of native poultry and drinking locally brewed liquor the patient lies in the sun. The pains get relieved as the patient sweats profusely. Eashwaramma said that a glassful of juice of bamboo shoots, locally brewed liquor, til oil and soup of native poultry is similarly drunk.

She said that she had been told that drinking a glass of juice from leaves of visandra and thakkili and lying out in the sun would address these pains similarly.