evacuant, a. and n.
(ɪˈvækjʊənt)
[f. L. ēvacuant-em, pr. pple. of ēvacuāre: see evacuate.]
A. adj. Med. That evacuates or tends to evacuate; promoting evacuation, cathartic, purgative.
| 1800 Med. Jrnl. IV. 214 Evacuant and debilitating remedies. 1818 A. T. Thomson Lond. Disp. ii. 41 Their general operation is evacuant, either by the stomach, the bowels, or the skin. 1881 tr. Trousseau & Pidous' Treat. Therap. 168 Evacuant treatment in general. |
B. n.
1. Med. A medicine that promotes evacuation; as a purgative, emetic, diaphoretic.
| 1730–6 in Bailey (folio). 1732 Hist. Litt. IV. 9 Those stupendous Effects which vegetable Concretes excite in the Body, both as Evacuants and Alterants. 1753 Torriano Sore Throat 32 The Emetic repeated did not act as an Evacuant in the least. 1830 Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. 73 Asarabacca is used by native practitioners in India as a powerful evacuant. 1876 Bartholow Mat. Med. (1879) 2 To the class of evacuants belong emetics..and diuretics. |
2. In Organ-building, a valve to let out the air from the bellows.