CATHARTIC (Fr. eathartique, from Gk. Kattaprom:, hat hart ikus, purgative, from sattapuf, katharos, clean). A name originally applied to any medicine that was supposed to purify the system from 'disease material' (materies morbi), which was generally presumed by the ancients to exist in all cases of fever and acute disease (see Ousts), and to require to be separated or thrown off by the different excretions of the body. Ultimately the term 'cathartic' became limited in its signification to remedies capable of causing copious evacuation of the bowels, and having a lunch more pronounced effect than the 'laxatives.' Purgatives occupy a position mid way between laxatives and cathartics in violence of action. The principal cathartics 'are aloes. eoloeynth, rhubarb. jalap, senna, Epsom and other salts. castor-oil, eroton-oil, and elaterium. They are employed when it is desirable to termi nate an attack of constipation, or to cause large, watery evacuations for the purpose of abstract ing water from the blood. so that water in the pleural or abdominal cavities or in the cellular tissues may pass into the blood-vessels and there by reduce a dropsical condition. Catharties act as irritants on the alimentary canal, provoking increased secretion to expel them, or as stimu lants of the peristaltic action of the muscular coat of the intestine through reflex nervous dis turbance. See the drugs mentioned, under their
names. See also STIPATION. CATHAR/TID/E. See Coxnou.
CATHAY, 1:51.11-fl'. A term which mile into use in later mediieval times and was applied to the vaguely wondrous regions of the far East. It was given to China by the first European ex plorer in that land, Alareo Polo (q.v.). it is supposed to have been derived by him from the name of a race of m•dbeval conquerors of north ern China. Khitah or Khitan, who had almost disappeared at the time of his visit, and who may have been conceived by him as having formed the original substratum of the Chinese It is an interesting fact that the name of this conquering tribe. which has long since disappeared in the place of its origin and media:vat use, is preserved in the modern Rus sian name for China, i.e. laitai. Columbus rea soned that. since the earth is spherical and not flat, lie could reach Cathay by sailing westward.