convulsant, a. and n.
(kənˈvʌlsənt)
[a. F. convulsant, pr. pple. of convulser to convulse.]
A. adj. Producing convulsions. B. n. A drug that produces convulsions.
| 1875 H. C. Wood Therap. (1879) 234 Porphyroxia..the most powerful of all the convulsant opium alkaloids. Ibid. 232 Claude Bernard ranks narcotina above morphia..as a convulsant in the lower animals. 1946 Nature 14 Sept. 383/1 The compound was a convulsant poison like methyl fluoroacetate. 1949 H. W. Florey et al. Antibiotics II. xxxvii. 1215 Impure penicillin ceased to be convulsant when its antibacterial activity was removed by clarase. Ibid., It was a convulsant. 1970 Nature 27 June 1223/1 Convulsants may interfere with the operation of inhibitory synapses in the brain and spinal cord of mammals. |