The basis for most of the ashipu's diagnosis of and the medical treatments for his patients was his ability to work with the asu in concocting the appropriate bultu, [slide 1739] a mush made of herbs and other varied in­gredients such as mud and animal dung, that were pounded, cooked, and strained. Patients took these bultus by applying them externally, taking them as an enema, swallowing them, or inhaling their vapors.  Two bultus were never the same, as no record of exact proportions of ingredients has been found.  One list of 230 possible ingredients for bultus included such imaginative items as lizard dung and marrow of long bone.