1711 G. Cary (title) A physician's phylactic, against a lawyer's venefic: or, An answer to a book, abusively entituled, The rights of the Christian Church asserted.

2002 Transplantation Proc. 34 2671/2 As a result, elastase in the inflammatory lesion disrupts proteins, acting as a biological phylactic.

1911 J. Freeman in Lancet 16 Sept. 815/2 At first thought it might be argued that phylactic doses of pollen toxin will only add poison to an already poisoned patient.

1918 A. E. Wright et al. in Lancet 15 June 837/2 Question as to whether it is possible to obtain a pansement d'attente—i.e., a phylactic dressing for use where the wound cannot at the time be surgically cleansed and resected.

1919 A. E. Wright in Lancet 29 Mar. 490/1 To combat bacterial infection the organism must have defensive powers. That power of guarding itself against infection we may—the suggestion is Lord Moulton's—call phylactic power. The leucocytes and the bacteriotropic substances in the blood fluid we may call phylactic agents.

1953 W. G. Walter Living Brain ix. 170 Such considerations have suggested a phylactic, or protective, hypothesis, to account for the slow electrical rhythms, according to which these rhythms are the wardens of brain function, limiting the consequences of excessive or ill-coordinated activity.

1961 Science 8 Dec. 1877/1 Apparently, calciphylaxis is a fundamentally adaptive (phylactic) response, that leads to defensive inflammation and sclerosis.

1964 Electroencephalogr. & Clin. Neurophysiol. 16 48/2 The vertex transients, having a phylactic function.., screen the brain against unwarranted influences from the arousal centres.

2000 Jrnl. Vet. Med. Sci. 62 1001 We conclude that the guttural pouch has phylactic ability.

1911 Lancet 16 Sept. 816/1 It remains to be considered how this treatment [for hay fever] is to be turned to account prophylactically next winter and spring, and phylactically next summer.

1916 Lancet 12 Feb. 349/2 Of 12 patients I treated only phylactically 4 were completely cured.