It acts as a moistener to the internal organs, has a pungent bitter taste, and is charged with a small quantity of alkali. It permeates the minutest capillaries, and tends to restore the deranged Vayu to its normal condition. Gutika salt destroys the deranged Vayu and Kapham, and is vermifugal, appetising, digestant and purgative. It tends to aggravate the Pittam and acts as an internal liquefacient or antifat. The salt quarried from a salt mine situated at the foot of a hill (Shailamulaja), or from a sandy (Valukelam) or alkaline soil (Ushakshara), has a pungent taste, and helps the disintegration of Kapham, etc. (Chhedi). It is also called pungent (Katu) salt.
The group of Alkalis:—The different varieties of alkali (Kshara) such as the Javakshara (Carbonate of potash), the Svarjikakshara, the Pakima and the Tankana cure abdominal glands, piles, mesenteric diarrhoea, and gravel and stone in the bladder. All these varieties of alkali should be regarded as possessed of digestant or stomachic properties. Their abuse is known to have brgught about cases of haemoptysis. Of these_, the varieties known as the Javakshara and Svarjikakshara are inflammatory as fire, and they tend to reduce Kapham, remove Vibondha (suppression of stool etc.), piles, and abdominal glands and prove curative in cases of enlarged spleen. They are anti-spermatopoietic. The alkali
