Asthma patients throng for miracle fish cure in Hyderabad

Hyderabad, June 9 (ANI): Thousands of people from across the world visited Hyderabad on Tuesday to cure their respiratory ailments by swallowing a small fish mixed with herbal medicines.

Patients suffering from asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory ailments, waited patiently for their turn at a massive city ground where the medicine was being given to them.

The distribution of the "miracle fish medicine" made of herbal yellow paste stuffed inside a live Murrel fish began at 5 pm after the traditional prayers and is expected to continue late into Wednesday.

Hyderabad's Bathini family, which has been giving away the medicine for the last 165 years, distribute the medicine to patients during the auspicious Mrigasira solar phase, an astrological phenomenon which occurs once a year for two days.

Bathinis say a saint gave the wonder cure in 1845 to Bathini Veeranna Gowd, a generous farmer, and asked him to treat all who came to him free of cost.

"On the occasion of Mrigasira Karti, there is rainfall and from that wet ground the fish that is taken out is good for asthma. We were told about this by our guru and we are carrying on this tradition since then," said Bathini Harinath Goud, the fish medicine maker.

The family has about 250 members and many of them were seen giving medicines to the serpentine queues of patients waiting since dawn outside the Nizam College.

The fish helps to clear the patient's oesophagus as it makes its way down to the stomach, and later releases the medicine. It survives for about 15 minutes inside the body, and clears phlegm in the lungs as it flaps about.

The patients have to take the complete course of the treatment for four years continuously to get cured fully.

The medicine comes free, but patients have to buy the fish, which is locally called "Murrel". (ANI)