black draught
noun1
Archaic, Historical A cathartic medicine composed of senna and magnesia.
- 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.1850, Charles Dickens, chapter 7, in David Copperfield:
- "You medical gentlemen must consult which sort of black draught you will prescribe, eh, Mr. Lydgate?"1871, George Eliot, chapter 16, in Middlemarch: