Part 4 - Ksaya-jvara or Shosha-jvara (fever due to consumption)

The fever due to consumption or phthisis affects all the seven dhatus (viz. chyle, blood, semen, fat, marrow, bone, and flesh). This fever is of three different kinds, viz. (1) vata balasaka, (2) bilepa, and (3) pralepa. All of these are indicators of waste or consumption. The first (viz. vata-balasaka) attacks a consumptive patient every day with slow rise of temperature, attended with coarseness of the skin, swelling, languor, stiffness of the limbs, and excess of kapha (phlegm). The second (viz. bilepi) is also attended with slow temperature, causing perspiration and a feeling of heaviness all over the patients’ body. If the symptoms of the second kind of fever are accompanied with a feeling of chilliness, the fever is called, pralepi.