Ca‐thar″tic, n.(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.