Definition of "evacuant" [e•vac•u•ant]

• Causing evacuation, especially of the bowels; purgative. (adjective)
• A purgative. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Laypeople perfectly understood the need to expel corrupted matter from their bodies when they fell ill, something that is revealed in the countless number of references to the evacuant therapies in contemporary writings."
• "There is not any slavery which these villains will not undergo, inter illos plerique latrinas evacuant, alii culinariam curant, alii stabularios agunt, urinatores et id genus similia exercent, &c. like those people that dwell in the"
• "At least one letter writer saw firsthand the perils of an overly aggressive treatment: "they bleed her six times and because of this she was put in great danger," Juan de Briguega writes about his wife, who, at the time, was seven months pregnant. 66 Although most of the evacuant treatments were probably harmless, the potential hazards of subjecting a patient to excessive bleeding or purging were real because dehydration and serious blood loss could be fatal."