Methinks this water should bee admirably good for whitening clothes for cloathiers, because it is impregnated so much with nitre, which is abstersive.
John Aubrey. The Natural History of Wiltshire (1675)
---
they should on the fourth day return to the senate house, attended by their apothecaries stored with proper medicines; and before the members sat, administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives, abstersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgics, icterics, apophlegmatics, acoustics, as their several cases required; and, according as these medicines should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them, at the next meeting.”
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Regions of the World (1726)