appears to be enveloped in frost or smoke, or enshrouded in a sheet of fine linen, or chequered with cross lines, or blazing with fire, or flooded with water, or to whose sight the Pole Star and the asterism Arundhati (one of the Pliades) and the Milky Way remain invisible, should be reckoned as already with the dead.
The man, who foils to see his own image reflected in a mirror, in the moonlight, or in hot water, or sees but distorted reflections of himself or of any other animal, or of dogs, cows, storks, vultures, ghosts, Yakshas, Rakshas, Pishachas and Nagas, should be regarded as about to depart this life. The man, to whom fire appears to be free of its natural accompaniment of smoke, or that it is possessed of a colour resembling the hue of the breast feathers of a peacock, should be regarded as doomed, (if happening to be suffering from any disease). On the other hand, these phenomena indicate the approach of a disease in one, who is found to be as yet in the enjoyment of apparent health.
Thus ends the thirtieth Chapter of the Sutrasthanam in the Sushruta Samhita which deals with prognosis from the perverted functions of the live sense organs.
