Purging Pills.
Take of succotorine aloes, and Castile soap, each two drachms; of simple syrup, a sufficient quantity to make them into pills.
Four or five of these pills will generally prove a sufficient purge. For keeping the body gently open, one may be taken night and morning. They are reckoned both deobstruent and stomachic, and will be found to answer all the purposes of Dr. Anderson's pills, the principal ingredient of which is aloes.
Where aloetic purges are improper, the following pills may be used :
Take extract of jalap, and vitriolated tartar, of each two drachms; syrup of ginger, as much as will make them of a proper consistence of pills.
These pills may be taken in the same quantity as the above.
William Buchan
Domestic Medicine 2nd edition 1785