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Purgative   Listen
noun
Purgative  n.  (Med.) A purging medicine; a cathartic.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Purgative" Quotes from Famous Books



... be absorbed, and produces swelling of the lymphatics of the neck, it should be cured as soon as possible by dusting the part with white lead, cerussa, in very fine powder; and to prevent any ill consequence an issue should be kept for about a month in the arm; or a purgative medicine should be taken, every other day for three or four times, which should consist of a grain of calomel, and three or four grains of rhubarb, and as much chalk. If there be no appearance of absorption, it is better only to keep the parts clean by washing them ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... desirable because the purpose of the physical plane is to gather experience that shall be transmuted into wisdom on a higher plane. It is a seed time against a later harvest. But the astral plane is, for the vast majority of the race, related to the purgative process. In that life the errors of the physical life are largely worked out and desires that have grown up like weeds in a garden are rooted out and the budding virtues are given a chance to grow. It is ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers

... illustrate this proposition before you decide upon it. If it were known that a prize-fighter were to have a drastic purgative administered two or three days before a contest, or a large blister applied to his back, no one will question that it would affect the betting on his side unfavorably; we will say to the amount of five per cent. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... adequately conceived and felt if it is not pleasure, and is generally too feeble and fitful in the young to awaken much energy or duration of action. Play is from within from congenital hereditary impulsion. It is the best of all methods of organizing instincts. Its cathartic or purgative function regulates irritability, which may otherwise be drained or vented in wrong directions, exactly as Breuer[24] shows psychic traumata may, if overtense, result in "hysterical convulsions." It is also the best form of self-expression; and its advantage is variability, following the impulsion ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... gum, more commonly used by painters as a coloring material, but also sometimes employed in medicine as a cathartic. Jalap is a flowering plant which grows only at high altitudes in Mexico, and its root produces an extract with a powerful purgative effect. All of these ingredients possessed one especial feature highly prized by the patent-medicine manufacturers of the nineteenth century, i.e., they were derived from esoteric plants found only in geographically remote locations. ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw

... agreeable taste and is pleasant to eat; but as it will not keep in its natural state, the women prepare it for exportation by dissolving it in boiling water, and evaporating it to a sweetish paste, which has more or less purgative, qualities. The aspect of the country changes after crossing the Tigris westward. The slopes of Mount Masios are everywhere furrowed with streams, which feed the Khabur and its principal affluent, the Kharmis;* woods become more frequent, and the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... collected gum—seemed to roast it. It dissolved with difficulty in water: added to gelatine soup, it was a great improvement; a little ginger, which John had still kept, and a little salt, would improve it very much. But it acted as a good lenient purgative on ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... in 2 quarts of tepid water may be given at one dose or carefully injected through the cannula directly into the paunch to stop fermentation and the consequent formation of gas. It is generally necessary to give a moderate dose of purgative medicine after bloating has subsided, as animals frequently show symptoms of constipation after attacks of indigestion. For this purpose 1 pound of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... sticks in a conical form, interwoven together like basket-work; the funnel is filled with the material, and water poured upon it; the succulent moisture therefrom passes through a tube, and yields a liquid similar in colour to coffee, and of a violent purgative quality. It remains in this state about twenty-four hours, and is then incorporated with a quantity of the ashes of rice-straw, which excites a bubbling fermentation like boiling water, after which it becomes fit for use. In forty-eight hours it returns again to its purgative ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... the stomach in a woman of seventy-four, the subject of lateral curvature of the spine, who had frequent attacks of indigestion and tympanites. On the day of death there was considerable distention, and a gentle purgative and antispasmodic were given. Just before death a sudden explosive sound was heard, followed by collapse. A necropsy showed a rupture two inches long and two inches from the pyloric end. Lallemand mentions an instance of the rupture of the coats of the stomach by the act of vomiting. The patient ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... Alfred," said Osmond heartily: and wrote a prescription on a leaf of his memorandum-book, remarking that though a simple purgative, it had made short work of a great many serpents and dragons, and not a few spectres and hobgoblins ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... kind of purgative syrup much used by the Egyptians, made of antiscorbutic herbs, such ...
— Peace • Aristophanes

... the lower bowel is quite prevented when this remedy is effectually used. In less severe cases, where fermentation of food is the cause of the disease, frequently a dessertspoonful of castor oil, or other simple purgative, will ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... all the hay. Our name for basil is ocinum, which is derived from the Greek word [Greek: ocheos] and signifies that it comes quickly, like the pot herb of the same name. It has this name also because it quickens the action of the bowels of cattle and so is fed to them as a purgative. It is cut green from a bean field before the pods are formed. On the other hand that forage which is cut with a sickle from a field in which barley and vetch and other legumes have been sown in mixture for forage, is called farrago ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... and glauber salts. many of the springs which flow from the base of the river hills are so strongly impregnated with this substance that the water is extreemly unpleasant to the taste and has a purgative effect.- saw some large white cranes pass up the river- these are the largest bird of that genus common to the country through which the Missouri and Mississippi pass. they are perfectly white except the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... biscuit-powder, and such matters, thinking that a diet of a lighter kind will not nourish. This is a mistake; for these preparations are much too solid; they overload the stomach, and cause indigestion, flatulence, and griping. These create a necessity for purgative medicines and carminatives, which again weaken digestion, and, by unnatural irritation, perpetuate the evils which render them necessary. Thus many infants are kept in a continual round of repletion, indigestion, and purging, with the administration ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... quantity of mucous secretion, which requires to be removed. To effect this, Nature has rendered the first portions of the mother's milk purposely watery and laxative. Nurses, however, distrusting Nature, often hasten to administer some active purgative; and the consequence often is, irritation in the stomach and bowels, not easily subdued." It is only where the child is deprived of its mother's milk, as the first food, that some gentle laxative should ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... can act only in an alkaline medium. The fermentive action of the bile is trifling; it dissolves fats, to a certain extent, and is antiseptic, that is, it prevents putrefaction to which the chyme might be liable; it also seems to act as a natural purgative. ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... it as if he saw it within a musket-shot. I was highly exasperated at Mohammed, because we had delayed to eat anything all day long, upon his representing to me that we should arrive an hour after sunset. But the milk acted like a purgative, and was perhaps advantageous. No people were seen in The Mountains, and very little cultivation. There were a few modern antiquities, chiefly the stones of Moorish forts and castles. Many villages in ruins, destroyed in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... expect, and disliking it in advance. The bluff over-heartiness of the voice was matched by the gross and hairy figure that confronted him. In some disarray, and managing to look as if he needed simultaneously a bath, a shave, a disinfecting and a purgative, the figure approached Forrester with a rolling walk that was too flat-footed for ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... substance is used in medicine under this name, chiefly obtained from the Calabrias, and is collected from the leaves of the ornus rotundifolia, (fruxinas ornus, of Linnaeus,) and a somewhat similar substance obtains in the onion; but from its purgative qualities, it is sufficiently obvious that the manna of the Scriptures is altogether different. According to Seetzen, Wortley Montague, Burckhardt, and other travellers, a natural production exudes from the spines of a species of tamarix, in the peninsula of Sinai. It condenses before ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various

... three parts, each averaging in Anthony's case about five days. First came the Purgative Exercises: the object of these was to cleanse and search out the very recesses of the soul; as fire ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... tapping, it yields in great abundance, they drink without mixture, or any preparation, as we had frequent opportunities of observing upon our journey to Bolcheretsk; and found it ourselves pleasant and refreshing, but somewhat purgative. The bark they convert into vessels, for almost all their domestic and kitchen purposes; and it is of the wood of this tree the sledges and canoes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... described on page 524 may be of value in the treatment of hookworms in cattle. It is asserted by one author that 2 or 3 drams of rectified empyreumatic oil in a mucilaginous emulsion, followed the next morning with a purgative of 1 to 1-1/2 pounds of sulphate of soda, will expel ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... demonstrative humour, discourses at length on the disease, speaks of many worse cases of its kind he cured, and assures the mother that within a month the child will recover. For the present he can but prescribe a purgative and a massage of the arm and spine. On the third visit, he examines the child's faeces and is happy to have discovered the seat and cause of the affection. The liver is not performing its function; and given such weak nerves as the child's, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... name of a family god. It was seen in the turtle, the sea eel, the octopus, and the garden lizard. Any one eating or injuring such things had either to be sham baked in an unheated oven, or drink a quantity of rancid oil as penance and a purgative. This god predicted that there was a time coming when Samoa would ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... soul, though it cannot in its own strength attain to this state,—because it is altogether a supernatural work wrought in it by our Lord,—may nevertheless succeed, by lifting up the spirit above all created things, and raising it upwards in humility, after some years spent in a purgative life, and advancing in the illuminative. I do not very well know what they mean by illuminative: I understand it to mean the life of those who are making progress. And they advise us much to withdraw from all bodily imagination, and draw near to the contemplation ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... time, 5 hrs. Courmayeur is frequented by Piedmontese in considerable numbers every summer, both on account of the mineral springs in its neighbourhood and for the sake of the exquisite freshness of its climate. The waters, which rise from alluvium, are saline and purgative. Those of La Saxe are sulphureous. All who have visited Courmayeur, under favourable circumstances, agree in considering its position one of the finest in the Alps. Six different routes diverge from Courmayeur—the road to Aosta; that ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... have ample but not violent exercise, with varied and wholesome food, including some preparation of bone meal; and at about the third week, whether she seems to require it or not, she should be treated for worms. At about the sixtieth day she will begin to be uneasy and restless. A mild purgative should be given; usually salad oil is enough, but if constipation is apparent castor oil may be necessary. On the sixty-second day the whelps may be expected, and everything ought to be in readiness for ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... imaginable; of a moderate degree of coldness though, not three degrees below Matlock surely; but omitting, simply enough, to carry a thermometer, one can measure the heat of nothing. Our hot water here seems about the temperature of the Queen's bath in Somersetshire; it is purgative, not corroborant, they tell me; and its taste resembles ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... "humbug" which I suspect in connection with the pills was, the very harmless and unobjectionable yet novel method of advertising them; and as the doctor amassed a great fortune by their manufacture, this very fact is prima facie evidence that the pill was a valuable purgative. ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... in a period greatly troubled by malaria, can be explained. Cinchona, discovered in Spanish America and known in seventeenth-century Europe, had demonstrable effects in the treatment of malaria but, because it was an additive rather than a purgative, physicians rejected it on theoretical grounds. Its eventual acceptance later revolutionized drug therapeutics, but this revolution did not ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes

... been expressed, and they form a most valuable addition to the warm food prepared during winter for the animals just named. I believe they have also a highly beneficial effect in warding off internal disease, owing, no doubt, to the soothing and slightly purgative properties of the oil contained in the seed. The change made in the appearance of the animals receiving some of the bolls in their steamed food is very apparent after a few weeks' trial; and the smoothness and sleekness of their ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... how pleased I am that the notion of Natural Selection has acted as a purgative on your bowels of immutability. Whenever naturalists can look at species changing as certain, what a magnificent field will be open,—on all the laws of variation,—on the genealogy of all living beings,—on their lines of migration, etc., etc. Pray thank Mrs. Hooker ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... the same Book, he puts an example of the Broth of a Cock, which moves the Belly; and the flesh hath the vertue to bind. He puts also the example of the Aloes, which if it be washt, looseth the Purgative vertue; or that which it hath, is ...
— Chocolate: or, An Indian Drinke • Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma

... thee, I have gone so far as to the consideration of myself, yet if I depart from thee, my centre, all is imperfect. This proceeding to action, therefore, is a returning to thee, and a working upon myself by thy physic, by thy purgative physic, a free and entire evacuation of my soul by confession. The working of purgative physic is violent and contrary to nature. O Lord, I decline not this potion of confession, however it may be contrary to a natural man. To take physic, and not according ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... of the next day we succeeded in finding a ford; and, after traveling 15 miles, encamped high up on the mountain-side, where we found excellent and abundant grass, which we had not hitherto seen. A new species of elymus, which had a purgative and weakening effect upon the animals, had occurred abundantly since leaving the fort. From this point, by observation 7,300 feet above the sea, we had a view of Colorado below, shut up amongst rugged mountains, and which is the recipient of all the streams we had been crossing since ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... scarlatina, was taken ill. Like most uneducated people, he could not understand how water could do any good for diseases, and went to the village-store to buy some patent medicine, which he took. The remedy producing no good effect, he bought some other medicine—purgative pills, as I understood—and took it. Some friends of the village, which, like other villages, especially in America, was full of doctors—brought him nostrums and popular remedies, which he took for some days, till he could not leave the bed any ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde

... man is required. They cure hot fevers with cold potations of water, but slight ones with sweet smells, with cheese-bread or sleep, with music or dancing. Tertiary fevers are cured by bleeding, by rhubarb or by a similar drawing remedy, or by water soaked in the roots of plants, with purgative and sharp-tasting qualities. But it is rarely that they take purgative medicines. Fevers occurring every fourth day are cured easily by suddenly startling the unprepared patients, and by means of herbs producing effects opposite to the humors of this fever. All ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells

... "Hanzal"coloquintida, an article often mentioned by Arabs in verse and prose; the bright coloured little gourd attracts every eye by its golden glance when travelling through the brown-yellow waste of sand and clay. A favourite purgative (enough for a horse) is made by filling the inside with sour milk which is drunks after a night's soaking: it is as active as the croton-nut ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... failed in those prudences, which belong unto a great Minister of State, who like a wise Physician is to consider times and seasons, as well as persons and diseases, and to regard those complications, which usually are mixed in ill habits of body, and to use more alterative than purgative Physick. For popular bents and inclinations are cured more by a steddy than precipitate hand or counsel; multitudes being to be drawn over from their errors, rather by wayes they discerne not, than by those, which they are likely to contest; whilst upon ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... dried blossoms are soaked in water and applied to the sore and bound with clean old linen cloth); red shank is good for a number of diseases; missing link root is for colds and asthma. George said this is a sure cure for asthma. Fever grass is a purgative when taken in the form of a tea. The blades are steeped in hot water and a tea made. Fever grass is a wide blade grass growing straighter than most grass. It has a blue flower and is found growing wild around ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... countries from the torment of insects, as Father Gumilla alleges, why has not the custom of painting the skin become general on these shores? (* The pulp of the anato, and even the chica, are astringent and slightly purgative.) Why do so many naked natives paint only the face, though living in the neighbourhood of those who paint the whole body?* (* The Caribs, the Salives, the Tamanacs, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... antidote for poison. Sir Thomas Brown was not prepared to contradict it: he says, that "Lapis Lasuli hath in it a purgative faculty, we know: that Bezoar is antidotal, Lapis Judaicus diuretical, Coral antipileptical, we will not deny."—"Vulgar Errors," edit. 1658, p. 104. He also (p. 205) calls it the Bezoar nut, "for, being broken, it discovereth a kernel of a leguminous smell and taste, bitter, like ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... constitution, living in the neighbourhood of London, had complained for about five weeks of a slight headache. He was feverish, inattentive to his occupation, and negligent of his family. He had been cupped, and taken some purgative medicine, when he was visited by Dr. Arnould, of Camberwell. By that gentleman's advice, he was sent to a private asylum, where he remained about two years. His delusions very gradually subsided, and he was afterwards restored ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... distinguished gentleman a ring (treasure), by calling out upon the entrance of the servants (or at the end of the three days), "That is the first (second, third)!" (C) He also guesses what is in the covered dish (or closed hand) while commiserating himself, "Poor Crab (Cricket, Rat)!" (D1) Through a purgative he by chance helps to find a stolen horse, or (D2) he discovers the horse that has previously been concealed by him. (E) He gets a living among the peasants, upon whom he has made an impression with a short or unintelligible sermon or through ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... without it, by Gad; your stomach will never be right. People go to Harrowgate, and Buxton, and Bath, and the devil knows where, to drink the waters, and they return full of admiration at their surpassing efficacy. Now these waters contain next to nothing of purgative medicine; but they are taken readily, regularly, and in such quantities, as to produce the desired effect. You must persevere in this plan, sir, until you experience relief, which you certainly will do. I am often asked—'Well, but Mr. Abernethy, why don't you practise what you preach?' I answer, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various

... purchased a strong opinion of learning and wisdom, and of being stout disputants; but this sort of disputation spent much time in trifling squabblings, which were of no credit or profit. Now Socrates, using an argumentative discourse by way of a purgative remedy procured belief and authority to what he said, because in refuting others he himself affirmed nothing; and he the sooner gained upon people, because he seemed rather to be inquisitive after the truth as well as they, than to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... Greeks the first mortal to practise healing. In one case he prescribed rust, probably the earliest use of iron as a drug, and he also used hellebore root as a purgative. He married a princess and was given part of a kingdom as a reward for his services. After his death he was awarded divine honours, and temples were erected for his worship. The deification of AEsculapius and of Melampus added much to the prestige of doctors in Greece, where ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott



Words linked to "Purgative" :   purge, cathartic, physic, Epsom salts, medicinal drug, evacuant, milk of magnesia, aperient, bitter aloes, Rochelle powder, medicine, castor oil, aloes, medication, laxative



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