LAXATIVE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Laxative

... the stomach and bowels, never having been used, contain a 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 ...

— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher