scammony
Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- noun An inspissated sap obtained from the root of the Convolvulus Scammonia, of a blackish gray color, a nauseous smell like that of old cheese, and a somewhat acrid taste. It is used in medicine as a cathartic.
Examples
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He made use of the narcotics mandragora, henbane, and probably also poppy-juice, and as a laxative used greatly a vegetable substance called "mercury," beet and cabbage, and cathartics such as scammony and elaterium!
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Taken into the inferior parts are clysters strong or weak, suppositories of Castilian soap, honey boiled to a consistence; or stronger of scammony, hellebore, &c.
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I let pass how for a minorative or gentle potion he took four hundred pound weight of colophoniac scammony, six score and eighteen cartloads of cassia, an eleven thousand and nine hundred pound weight of rhubarb, besides other confuse jumblings of sundry drugs.
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel
Note
The word 'scammony' comes from Greek skammōniā.
