a. and sb. Aslo 7 -iphicke, 7–8 -ifick. [ad. mod.L. sūdōrificus: see -FIC. Cf. F. sudorifique, It., Sp., Pg. sudorifico.]
A. adj.
1. Promoting or causing perspiration; diaphoretic.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 706. A Decoction of Sudorifick Herbs.
1634. Lowe’s Chirurg. (ed. 3), V. xii. 153. Decoction sudoriphicke.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, in Aliments, etc., 271. Many things which are diuretick are likewise sudorifick.
1811. A. T. Thomson, Lond. Disp. (1818), 584. This oil is stimulant, anti-spasmodic, anodyne, and sudorific.
1850. S. Dobell, Rom., v. Poet. Wks. (1875), 59. Sudorific toil.
1869. Claridge, Cold Water Cure, 203. Sudorific Process.
2. Connected with the secretion and the exudation of sweat; sudoriparous, perspiratory.
c. 1720. W. Gibson, Farrier’s Dispens., vii. (1734), 184. The Sudorifick Pores.
1799. Underwood, Dis. Childhood (ed. 4), II. 169. Hydroa, or Sudamina is a trifling eruption from the sudorific glands.
1878. A. M. Hamilton, Nervous Dis., 74. During the warmer season, when the sudorific apparatus requires a free capillary circulation.
3. Consisting of sweat. rare.
1807. Syd. Smith, Wks. (1850), 85. A miraculous image of our Lady of Serdenay, which always sweats—not ordinary sudorific matter—but an oil of great ecclesiastical efficacy.
1837. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Ser. I. Leech Folkestone. Did you ever … burst out into sudorific exudation like a cold thaw, with the thermometer at zero?
4. Of limestone caves, etc.: That exudes.
1828. Duppa, Trav. Italy, etc., 142. The steam-baths of Dædalus … consist of several sudorific grottos.
B. sb. A medicine or remedy that promotes perspiration; a diaphoretic.
1667. Phil. Trans., II. 547. She never swet in her life, nor could it be procur’d by ordinary Sudorificks.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Sudorificks only differ from Diaphoreticks in the Degree of their Action; the one promoting sensible Perspiration, the other insensible.
1756. C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, III. 171. This bath becomes the most powerful and certain sudorific known.
1841. Brewster, Martyrs Sci., II. iv. (1856), 159. Antimony … a well known sudorific in the present practice of physic.
1883. J. Mackenzie, Day-dawn in Dark Places, 42. Failing to produce perspiration, they actually rolled the miserable man in the burning sand as a sudorific!
1908. Sir H. Johnston, G. Grenfell & the Congo, II. xxii. 557. A treatment of disease by massage or sudorifics.
b. transf.
1777. H. Walpole, Lett. to C’tess Upper Ossory, 29 June. We will keep ourselves warm with hot cockles and blindman’s-buff, and other old English sudorifics.
