Ca*thar"tic (?), Ca*thar"ic*al (?), a. [Gr. , fr. to cleanse, fr. pure; akin to F. chaste.]

1. Med.

Cleansing the bowels; promoting evacuations by stool; purgative.

2.

Of or pertaining to the purgative principle of senna, as cathartic acid.

 

© Webster 1913.


Ca*thar"tic, n. [Gr. .] Med.

A medicine that promotes alvine discharges; a purge; a purgative of moderate activity.

The cathartics are more energetic and certain in action that the laxatives, which simply increase the tendency to alvine evacuation; and less powerful and irritaint that the drastic purges, which cause profuse, repeated, and watery evacuations.

-- Ca*thar"tic*al*ly, adv. -- Ca*thar"tic*al*ness, n.

 

© Webster 1913.

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