Administration of wonder cure begins amid row
Published: June 9, 2005
Amid a raging controversy over its efficacy, hundreds of people gathered at the sprawling Exhibition Grounds here yesterday to get the fish medicine touted as a wonder cure for asthma.
Asthma patients lined up at the grounds in Nampally to take the medicine from Bathini Goud family members even as the government, following the Andhra Pradesh High Court orders Tuesday, put up banners at the venue stating that it did not have any proven medical value.
The administration of fish medicine at various counters began at 9.20am, the time fixed by astrologers.
The controversies in the last couple of years over the medicine have had an impact on the turnout. Even though hundreds of patients have come here from all over the country, the numbers have dwindled.
But sheer faith has drawn many to the annual event. “I know that there is no scientific evidence that the medicine cures asthma but I have heard stories about its efficacy and read in the newspapers and that is why I have come here,” said Anil Kumar, a patient from Karnataka. And unmindful of the court orders, dozens of Goud family members started administration of their ‘miracle medicine’. The process will continue for 24 hours.
For the last 160 years, the Goud family has been distributing the medicine to asthma patients on the first day of Mrugasira Karti, a date on the Hindu calendar that heralds the onset of the monsoon.
A yellow herbal paste is first put in the mouth of the three-cm- long murrel fish and then slipped through the throat of the patient. If taken for three successive years, the medicine is believed to cure asthma.
Despite demands from physicians to reveal the ingredients of the herbal paste and allegation by rationalists that they were cheating people, the Goud family has refused to reveal the contents saying the medicine would lose its efficacy.
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