Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In medicine, a decoction or aqueous infusion of one or more medicinal substances to which other medicaments are added, such as salts or syrups.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.), obsolete A decoction or infusion.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun medicine, obsolete A decoction or infusion.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin apozema, Ancient Greek to extract by boiling.

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Examples

  • To be sure his apozem has had a blessed effect -- five-and-twenty stools since three o'clock in the morning.

    The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves Tobias George Smollett 1746

  • To this question, he replied, that venesection had been three times performed; that a vesicatory had been applied inter scapulas; that the patient had taken occasionally of a cathartic apozem, and between whiles, alexipharmic boluses and neutral draughts.

    The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves Tobias George Smollett 1746

  • To this question, he replied, that venesection had been three times performed; that a vesicatory had been applied inter scapulas; that the patient had taken occasionally of a cathartic apozem, and between whiles, alexipharmic boluses and neutral draughts. — “Neutral, indeed,” said the doctor; “so neutral, that I’ll be crucified if ever they declare either for the patient or the disease.”

    The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves 2004

  • To be sure his apozem has had a blessed effect — five-and-twenty stools since three o’clock in the morning.

    The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves 2004

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  • The apothecaries, like the Titans of old, heaping potion upon pill, and invading the Olympus of medicine, think themselves fully qualified to usurp and maintain the throne, now that it is only thought necessary to set open the doors, and to drive the enemy out at the portal or the postern by main force. They go to the length of infusing their deadly drugs into apozems and cordials, and then set themselves up against the most eminent of the fraternity.

    - Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 10 ch. 1

    October 8, 2008