a. (sb.). [a. F. curatif, -ive (15th c.), f. L. cūrāt-, ppl. stem of cūrāre to CURE: see -IVE.]

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  I.  1. Of or pertaining to the curing of disease or the healing of wounds.

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1533.  Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1541), 60 b. The part curatiue, whiche treateth of healynge of sycknes.

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1541.  R. Copland, Galyen’s Terap., 2 H iij. Alway the curatyfe indicacions are correspondent to ye nombre of ye affections and dyseases.

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1671.  Salmon, Syn. Med., III. xiii. 349. The Curative part of Medicine.

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1800.  Med. Jrnl., III. 395. Those who have practised the Curative Art in that City [Bourdeaux].

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1878.  C. Stanford, Symb. Christ, viii. 206. Christ’s curative miracles.

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  2.  Having the tendency or power to cure disease; promoting cure.

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1644.  Bulwer, Chirol., 147. The conveyance and application of that curative vertue.

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1704.  F. Fuller, Med. Gymn. (1711), 4. Consideration of it only as it may prove Curative, not as Palliative.

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1865.  Livingstone, Zambesi, ii. 60. This sleeping is curative of what may be incipient sunstroke.

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1881.  J. Simon, in Nature, No. 616. 370. Curative medicine.

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  b.  fig. Remedial, corrective.

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1661.  Origen’s Opin., in Phenix (1721), I. 82. All Punishment is curative.

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1686.  Horneck, Crucif. Jesus, xix. 542. All afflictions and judgments of this life are curative.

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1880.  C. H. Pearson, in Victorian Rev., 2 Feb., 538. Men … ask whether the plébiscite is to be curative or preventive.

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  II. as sb. A remedial medicine or agent.

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  Hence Curatively adv.; Curativeness.

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1862.  in Pall Mall Gaz., 13 Jan. (1885), 4/2. It has shown itself to be curatively deterrent and reformatory by the small proportion of relapses.

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1875.  M. Arnold, in Contemp. Rev., XXV. 303. An element of genuine curativeness. Ibid. (1879), Irish Cathol., Mixed Ess. 115. Conscious not of their vain disfigurements of the Christian religion, but of its genuine curativeness.

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