aperient's Usage Examples:

It is also very useful as a supplement to mercury, which needs a saline aperient to complete its action.

The case should be treated by rest in bed, fomentations, calomel and saline aperients.

Manna possesses mildly laxative properties, and on account of its sweet taste is employed as a mild aperient for children.

In medicine it is employed as an aperient, and is one of the safest and most innocuous known.

In large doses oil of turpentine causes purging and may induce much haemorrhage from the bowel; it should be combined with some trustworthy aperient, such as castor oil, when given as an anthelmintic.

Above all, fasting was a mode of preparing oneself for the sacramental eating of a sacred animal, and as such often assisted by use of purgatives and aperients.

Should these means fail, aperients may be used.

Some sufferers from constipation find that they get greater relief from salts dissolved in water, or from natural aperient water taken on rising in the morning, and others again find that the best way of opening the bowels is to inject one or two drachms of glycerine into the rectum, or use it as a suppository.

The treatment in such latter cases necessarily varies, since the symptom itself may be remedial, but in ordinary cases depends on the removal of the cause of irritation by the use of aperients, various sedatives being also prescribed.

The south spring is aperient, but contains some iron; while the north or chalybeate spring is more tonic in its properties.

All patients in this study were taking an aperient, despite this 78 per cent were constipated.

Their aperient action is dependent upon the minimum of irritation of the bowel, and is exercised by their abstraction from the blood of water, which passes into the bowel to act as a diluent of the salt.

Synonyms:

laxative,

Antonyms:

costive, over-the-counter drug,