Asthma patients line up for fish cure

Every June, on a date chosen by astrologers, patients from all over India get the free treatment outside the home of the Goud family, which claims it received the formula from a Hindu saint 162 years ago.

Narendar Kumar Gupta, 40, from Bihar said he was coming for the third time. "My condition has improved considerably during the past two years," he said.

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Baldev Singh has travelled from Rajasthan to Hyderabad for a fifth straight year. "I am told that one should take this medicine for at least seven years to root out the problem of asthma completely," he said. Doctors have asked the Goud family to disclose the formula for medical and scientific scrutiny.

"If they refuse to do so, the government should withdraw its support for the event," said MV Ranga Redy of the Indian Medical Association, an umbrella organisation of doctors.

But the Gouds refuse to reveal the herbal formula for fear it will be used for profit. They say the saint warned that the remedy would lose its potency if it were commercialised.

"We will continue the distribution of the medicine until the last man gets it," said Bathini Harinath Goud, one of five brothers who makes the yellow paste smeared inside the mouth of an inch-long sardine.

Nearly 200 family members and volunteers are administering the sardines to the patients.

"Everybody can't make people gulp a tiny live fish, which is an integral part of the medicine. This requires special expertise," said Goud, whose family has been administering the treatment for nearly 50 years.

After swallowing the live fish, the patients begin a strict 45-day diet of 25 different foods, including lamb, rice, white sugar, dried mango, spinach and clarified butter. They must abstain from deep-fried food and repeat the treatment at least once within two years.