[f. CONVULSION + -IST.]
1. = CONVULSIONARY B; also used of other religious enthusiasts.
1837. J. G. Millingen, Curios. Med. Exper., 165. The Convulsionist, who was of the gentle sex, would not allow sixty blows she had received from her first doctor to be included in the calculation of the dose, but insisted upon having her whole hundred as prescribed.
1865. Baring-Gould, Werewolves, iv. 40. As invulnerable and as insensible to pain as the Jansenist convulsionists of S. Medard.
1869. Mrs. Oliphant, Reign Geo. II., II. 59. Wesley and his brethren threw themselves on their knees round the convulsionist just struck down in their midst.
2. Geol. One who holds that the great geological changes were produced by violent convulsions or upheavals; = CATASTROPHIST.
1880. A. R. Wallace, Isl. Life, 216. Upholding the soundness of the views of the ‘uniformitarians’ as opposed to the ‘convulsionists.’
1881. Geikie, in Macm. Mag., July, 229/2.
1888. Q. Rev., CLXVI. 113.
