The usual ways to prepare curds is to place a bit of sour substance like the previous curds, or buttermilk in milk that is heated and cooled. Within 8-10 hours curds will form. Raw milk taken from market is an excellent agent for many disease germs of tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, typhus and so on. To prepare buttermilk from it directly will make it really a poison. That is why milk should be boiled well and then only used for making curds and then, the buttermilk. This is the normal way of preparing curds. Here are a few other ways mainly meant for some specific diseases.
Sprinkle one tola of a mixture of the powders of dry ginger and the root of chitrak (Plumbago zeylanica) mixed with honey at the base of the pail of milk in which curd is to be formed. Use cow’s milk. Or use the milk of a healthy goat that has had a feed of the leaves of green gram and blackgram. Prepare buttermilk.
Or, take the pulp of wood apple or the juice of a well ripened mango, smear the vessel and prepare curds in it. The buttermilk obtained from this method is to be mixed with dry ginger powder and administered for patients of samgrahani or intestinal mal-absorption.
Take the bark of the root of chitrak, grind into a paste, smear the vessel and prepare the curds in it. The curds as such or the buttermilk destroys piles.
Difference in the properties depending upon the vessel of the preparation:
For curing intestinal mal-absorption, buttermilk from the curds prepared in a golden, a silver, a stone or an earthen vessel is beneficial. Steel vessel is meant for jaundice. For treating piles any metallic vessel will do. But it is important to note that copper vessel should never be used. Brass vessel should be well tinned and aluminum should be avoided.