Utility of incision /excision (Utkartana) in poisoning: A theoretical analysis

Poisoning can be accepted as the common and most challenging situation for the human society. Exposure to poison is an old age experience of the human society. It is a dreadful situation as it has the potency to cause death even immediately, before installation of treatment and, in most of the situations, after application of the best available measures of treatment. UTKARTANA (Incision /excision) is a method of treatment mentioned among the 24 treatment modules of treatment of poisoning by the Ayurvedic scholars. Under this headings (heading)the victim of poison / physician is advised to cut away (excise) the part affected, if possible, or advised to give incisions on the affected part to expel out the poison by squeezing or sucking through it. It is expected that, if the affected part will be cut away immediately then the poison will not be able to spread to the other part of the body. On the other hand, if immediately incisions will be given at the site through which poison entered and the poisoned blood will be expelled out by squeezing or sucking then also there is scope of expelling out of the poisoned blood and the quantity of poison in the system will reduce. Ayurvedic classics recommend this process in poisoning, specially in snakebite. But there are some controversies in it’s applicability. Hence throwing light on this topic can be considered to have importance and impact