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## Twelfth Uddeshak:
**Faults in Medical Practice**
1. Many medical practices involve harmful tendencies.
2. The use of harmful substances is encouraged.
3. Even if a disease is cured by restrictive medical practices, it can lead to an increase in the movement of many people.
4. If a medical practice worsens someone's disease, it brings disrepute. Due to these faults, the Sutra prescribes atonement for a monk engaging in household medical practice.
**Acharanga Sutra 1.2.5** states that medical practice involves many harmful tendencies like killing, etc. Therefore, a monk should not engage in the practice of treating diseases.
Knowing these scriptural injunctions, a monk should not engage in household medical practice. If, due to circumstances, medical practice is used, the atonement prescribed in the Sutra should be undertaken.
**Atonement for Taking Food Prepared with Previous Actions**
14. A monk who takes food, drink, edibles, or delicacies with a hand, earthen pot, ladle, or metal vessel that has been touched by previous actions, or approves of someone who takes such things, incurs a minor four-month atonement.
**Explanation:** If a householder washes their hands or a ladle, bowl, etc., before offering food to a monk, then those hands or utensils are considered to be touched by previous actions. It is not proper to accept alms from them. This is because washing them involves violating the principles of non-violence and non-harming.
In many families, it is customary to touch food items after washing hands. Some people want to offer alms with a washed vessel out of a sense of purity, or they want to wash the food that has touched their hands or vessels before offering it. Therefore, a discerning monk who is aware of the situation should prohibit the donor from washing their hands, etc., beforehand. Even if the donor washes their hands, etc., before or after the prohibition, the monk should not accept the offering.
**Acharanga Sutra 2.1.6** provides a detailed explanation of this topic.
This fault is included in the "giving" faults of the category of "desire."
**Dashavaikalika Sutra 5.1.32** also prohibits accepting alms from hands, etc., that have been touched by previous actions.
If the donor washes their hands, ladle, etc., with water that has been purified by chanting, then the fault of previous actions does not apply. However, if they wash with water that has not been purified by chanting, or if they wash without discernment, then the fault of previous actions applies.