HYDERABAD: The famed
“fish medicine” for people suffering from asthma and
other respiratory diseases will be administered for two
days, on June 8 and 9 here. It will begin at 3.42 pm on the “Mrigasira
Karti” of the Hindu calendar on June 8th and continue till June
9th.
While
the Bathini family, which has been giving the medicine for about 160
years free of cost as “service to mankind”, is busy preparing
the herbal medicine, the district administration will facilitate
the event by making it easy for the several thousand people who descend
upon the city every year at the onset of monsoon.
The administration
of the herbal medicine, traditionally done in a live mural fish fingerling,
has seen severe opposition from rationalists, researchers and doctors.
With the issue taken to the court, the AP High Court ruled that the
word “therapy” be used instead of “medicine”. Extensive
tests by leading laboratories into the contents of the medicine did
not reveal any harmful ingredients like steroids, encouraging the administration
to back the Bathini brothers.
However,
the Bathini brothers refuse to reveal the ingredients of the medicine
which they claim was given to a forefather by a rishi on the
condition that it should be kept a secret and administered free of cost.
The district
administration for the first time is introducing “tokens” to regulate
the administering of the medicine. About 400 tokens will be issued daily
for the four days from June 4, each specifying the day and time for
the patient to go to the counters. The district administration is also
hosting a special link to the fish medicine on its official website,
http://hyderabad.ap.nic.in/fish/bathini.htm. Bathini Harinath Goud,
head of the Bathini family, has said they would now call their medicine
“prasadam” or therapy to avoid controversy.
Times of India - 9.6.2006 |
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