a) How do you find that the drug has started working, after snake bite?

If salt or chill taste brackish or bitter, the drug seems to have started working. We need to find how these diagnostic heuristics have evolved, what is the scientific basis of taste loss and recovery as related to toxicity reduction.

b) The local made tiles for houses are flatter and in most villages, thee are no moulds. While digging earth, care is taken to not use top soil ( unlike the bricj industry which takes away the top soil). He farmers are aware that addition of organic manure makes the spoil more friable which is not a good condition for binding the clay. They thus remove the top soil, and take the  soil from below layer for making tiles.

c) There was only one farmer, Makka bhai who grew Kodri crop. He was aware that consumption of Eleusine Corcona (kodri, a minor millet) could cause toxic symptoms (when one sees different kind of colours, loses control a bit, has some kind of hallucination). Consumption of jaggery helps in reversing the symptoms. The grain was sold at the rate of around 25 Rs per kg. It was a good grain for sick or convalescing people who could digest it easily. It also had high fibre and nutritional content but then not many people grew it any more.

d) The healers were very keen to share their experiences and formulations. After listening to a few experiences, Purushottam of sristi asked, “but why don’t you ask, what will we do with this knowledge, why do we want to document this knowledge?”   The concept of Prior Art Consent was explained. But that did not influence the motivation of healers to share their knowledge. They were clear, “ will you not take our knowledge to other villagers, will it not help them? Do we care about the rest at all?”

Anil K Gupta