1600 W. Vaughan Nat. & Artific. Direct. Health (1633) 78 The Dose or quantity is foure or five leaves of it in a cup of Ale.

1608 Bp. T. Morton Preamble Incounter 39 A dos of his Opium.

1808 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 19 248 Small dozes of tincture of digitalis.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 441 To call his complaint a fever, and to administer doses of bark.

1912 W. J. S. Bythell & A. E. Barclay X-ray Diagnosis & Treatm. 117 Heavy doses may occasionally produce a strong skin reaction.

1918 R. Knox Radiogr. & Radio-therapeutics (ed. 2) ii. 424 An erythema dose is one which causes slight erythema to appear within fifteen to twenty-one days.

1918 R. Knox Radiogr. & Radio-therapeutics (ed. 2) ii. 428 If the total dose is to be administered in several sittings.

1918 R. Knox Radiogr. & Radio-therapeutics (ed. 2) ii. 514 Exposures, with large quantities of radium in well-filtered doses, may be given up to twenty-four hours.

1947 Radiology 49 283/2 Lower dose rates could not be used, as the period of fertility of mice is only eight months.

1947 Radiology 49 352/1 Four dose levels (13, 4·3, 1·15, 0·115r) were empirically chosen.

1950 Britannica Bk. of Year 682/2 Dose, the amount of radio-active contamination received by a person, implement, or other object employed on or used in atomic energy research or utilization.

1955 Bull. Atomic Scientists 213/3 The biological effects of radiation are measured by the dose received, that is, by the energy absorbed by unit volume of the tissue from the radiation.

1956 Nature 17 Mar. 531/1 At very low dose-rates..the radiation times required would be inconveniently long.

1959 Times 7 Dec. (Agric. Suppl.) p. vi/5 Doses of radiation in the range 8,000–10,000 rads have been found to be sufficient for commercially acceptable sprout suppression in potatoes of several varieties.

1963 Clin. Dosimetry (Nat. Bur. Stand. Handbk. 87) 38/2 Numerous names were examined as a replacement for exposure dose, but there were serious objections to any which included the word dose. There appeared to be a minimum of objection to the name exposure and hence this term has been adopted by the [International] Commission [on Radiological Units and Measurements]... The elimination of the term ‘dose’ accomplishes the long-felt desire of the Commission to retain the term dose for one quantity only—the absorbed dose.

1969 New Scientist 24 Apr. 177/1 With high energy X-rays the dose at a depth below the surface is significantly greater than that on the surface skin.

1970 R. Passmore & J. S. Robson Compan. Med. Stud. II. xxxiii. 3/2 Such fall-out is estimated to have resulted in an average yearly dose of 2·4 mrads in the period 1954–9.

1607 R. Parker Scholasticall Disc. against Antichrist i. ii. 68 To banish the whole dosse of popishe doctrine.

1664 S. Butler Hudibras: Second Pt. ii. iii. 199 Marri'd his punctual dose of Wives.

c1790 J. Willock Voy. diverse parts 55 A sufficient doze of their favorite liquor, whiskey.

1858 C. Merivale Hist. Romans under Empire VI. liii. 152 To repeat and increase daily the dose of flattery.

1894 P. L. Ford Hon. Peter Stirling 150 ‘He snubbed me,’..explained Miss De Voe, smiling..at the thought of treating Peter with a dose of his own medicine.

1847 E. Brontë Wuthering Heights I. iii. 56 You have reason in shutting it up... No one will thank you for a dose in such a den!

1939 H. G. Wells Holy Terror i. ii. 41 Seems he don't like the idea of this new war that's coming... We had a dose.

1837 Crockett's Almanac 3 I'll go through the Mexicans like a dose of salts.

1953 E. Simon Past Masters ii. iii. 84 She went systematically through the residents, in the phrase of Monro, like a dose of salts.

1961 L. Dobie & R. Sloman Tinker 11 If you think you're getting tired or anything, tell me and we'll be back down that bloody thing like a dose of salts.

1961 P. G. Wodehouse Service with Smile ii. 28 He boxed three years for Oxford... And went through the opposition like a dose of salts.

1968 J. Wainwright Edge of Extinction 31 If we don't hold 'em they'll go through this city like a dose of salts.

1914 Dial. Notes 4 105 Dose, venereal disease.

1922 J. Joyce Ulysses ii. viii. [Lestrygonians] 146 Some chap with a dose burning him.

1952 B. Hamilton So Sad, so Fresh xix. 122 The cream of the joke is, she gave me the worst dose I've ever had.

1968 B. Turner Sex Trap xi. 97 She's riddled with pox. I know four blokes who've copped a dose from her.

1654 E. Gayton Pleasant Notes Don Quixot ii. ii. 39 For the mishap, no other..was to dose it but himselfe.

1692 R. South 12 Serm. I. 401 A bold, self-opinion'd Physician..who shall Dose, and Bleed, and Kill him secundum artem.

1753 G. Washington Jrnl. in Writings (1889) I. 25 They dosed themselves pretty plentifully with it [wine].

1824 W. Irving Tales of Traveller I. 41 My uncle grew worse and worse, the more dosing and nursing he underwent.

1836 J. Hume in Ho. Comm. 24 Mar. The dosing wines liberally with brandies and other spirits.

1884 Fortn. Rev. Dec. 799 This dosing with ammoniates has done more to impoverish agriculture than all the terrors of disease.