black draught

plural black draughts

1. archaichistoricalA cathartic medicine composed of senna and magnesia.

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

   1871, George Eliot, chapter 16, in Middlemarch

   1 more example

   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