black draught

English

Noun

black draught (plural black draughts)

1. (historical or archaic) A cathartic medicine composed of senna and magnesia.
   • 1850, Charles Dickens, chapter 7, in David Copperfield‎^[1]:

     He was taken ill in the night—quite prostrate he was—in consequence of Crab; and after being drugged with black draughts and blue pills, to an extent which Demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse's constitution, received a caning and six chapters of Greek Testament for refusing to confess.

   • 1871, George Eliot, chapter 16, in Middlemarch‎^[2]:

     "You medical gentlemen must consult which sort of black draught you will prescribe, eh, Mr. Lydgate?"

References

• “black”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.