Antimony is of different kinds: by some it is described a blackish mineral substance staining the hands, full of long, shining needle-like striÆ, hard, brittle, and considerably heavy. It is found in different parts of Europe, as Bohemia, Saxony, Transylvania, Hungary, France, and England, commonly in mines, intermixed with earth and stones. Sometimes it is blended with the richer ores of silver, which renders the extraction of that metal difficult, volatilising a part of the silver, or, in the language of the miners, robbing the ore[6].

The Hungarian and Transylvanian, of which little or none comes to us, is esteemed much the best for medicinal use. The English seems of all others the least proper for that purpose, frequently containing a portion of lead[7], which is not separable by any of the common methods of purification, or else the English miners are unacquainted with the method of purifying it in foreign countries.

The celebrated Dr. Hunter has in his museum, eighteen curious specimens of antimony, very different from each other: some are covered with a white calcareous crust; some, in external appearance, resemble cobalt[8]; others the lead ores; and others, those of arsenic; some are almost perfectly black; some have red striÆ, interspersed throughout the ore, and others shining spiculÆ like polished steel. But as they have not yet been assayed, no very probable conjecture can be formed concerning their component parts, nor of the proportion they bear to each other.

Chymists have not been sufficiently accurate in pointing out the signs by which the purity of this mineral is to be distinguished. Basil Valentine says, it is of two kinds which are very different, one is beautiful and possessed of some of the properties of gold. The other has more of sulphur and not so much affinity to gold, it is distinguished by beautiful, white shining striÆ. The one is much to be preferred to the other for the purpose of the medicine as well as alchymy[9].

Some direct antimony to be tried by rubbing the powder with a strong dog’s tooth upon yellow paper, where, if it leaves a red spot it is pure. Others order a tincture to be made with spirit of vinegar and evaporated on an iron plate, and if it leaves a red powder it is reputed good. It is also said to be good, when it is not spongy, but heavy, and when it evaporates by a strong heat[10].

The earlier chymical writers who praise it highly, scruple not to own that it is, in its natural state, a virulent poison. Basil Valentine, its greatest advocate, though he admits that it is given by farmers to their cattle, when they intend to make them fat and smooth; yet declares it to be truly poisonous, and strictly prohibits the use of it unprepared.

Paracelsus, as well as Glauber,[11] recommends it as an external application in the cure of cancers, judging it superior even to arsenic in all corroding diseases, and expresses his ardent wishes that it should be substituted in place of all other remedies, that the reproach of the chirurgical art might be removed, and our humanity might not be offended with such numbers of maimed and mutilated objects[12]. He highly extols its preparations, and attributes to some of them the power of giving the bloom of youth to decrepit old age, but strictly prohibits its internal use unprepared, and treats particularly of the baneful influence of the crude mineral, in his book on the diseases occasioned by working in mines and in metals.

Some later writers are silent concerning its noxious qualities, and others positively assert, that antimony, in its crude state, is not a poison, but if given from four grains to half a drachm, an excellent resolvent and purifier of the blood.

Dr. James in the universal English Dispensatory says, it is astonishing that so many physicians, and some of them men of learning, should so strenuously oppose the introduction of antimony into medicine, and without any manner of evidence or experience, treat it as a deleterious poison. For it appears that antimony reduced to powder is neither emetic nor cathartic: though, if given in large quantities, it may perhaps, by its weight, gently loosen the belly; and so far is it from being deleterious, that it is an excellent alterative in the mange of horses, and a salutary medicine in some diseases of men as well as cattle. It is therefore astonishing that any instances should occur of patients who have been deserted by physicians, and afterwards found a remedy in antimony, administered by quacks, who do not so much as pretend to any degree of medicinal knowledge.

But the arguments drawn from the example of giving antimony in large quantities to horses, do not prove its innocence in the human body. The crocus metallorum is used by farriers to the quantity of an ounce or two in the day, yet a few grains of this preparation produce in men the most violent and dangerous effects.

The authority of Basil Valentine, which is brought to prove the innocence of crude antimony is also directly perverted, and the story of his having introduced it into medicine from an accidental observation of its effects upon swine, is no where to be found in the Triumphal Chariot of Antimony. Basil Valentine, to whom, says the same author, we are obliged for discovering the medical uses of antimony, first using it internally, and enriching medicine with many of its preparations, having thrown away some antimony which he had used in the fusion of metals, and observing some swine, who had accidentally eaten it, to purge considerably, and afterwards become sleek and fat, took the hint of trying what it would do in human bodies.

But this matter is very differently represented by Basil Valentine himself. Let mankind, says he, be instructed, that antimony not only purifies and refines gold, and frees it from all metals and every foreign matter, but accomplishes the same in men and cattle by its innate virtue. I shall explain this by a rude experiment. If a farmer should set apart any animal, a hog for instance, to be fed, let him give the animal half a drachm of antimony, for two or three days, mixed with his food, so that he may be purged, by which he will not only acquire an appetite and become sooner fat; but if he labours under any disease the antimony will expel it[13]. But I would not advise any person to give crude antimony to the human race, as a medicine, for he that would use it with safety and success, must first know the method of preparing it, in which the greatest part of the mystery consists; and an imprudent physician, who gives it without this necessary knowledge, will do more hurt than good[14].

This is not taking a hint from the effects of antimony on swine, but a direction to give it to those animals when they are to be made fat. It is the more necessary to point out this mistake, since Basil Valentine is quoted by this author, as having maintained the safety and efficacy of crude antimony, though he constantly asserts it, in its natural state, to be virulent and poisonous. I shall be the first, says he, to protest and exclaim against those, who, being ignorant of the method of preparation, give poisons to mankind, for mercury, orpiment, and antimony are poisonous, and will ever remain so, unless they are fitly prepared[15]: and again, If antimony is given without being prepared, it will quickly kill the patient[16].

Hence it appears, though he highly extols the preparations of antimony, yet he not only exclaims against using it in its crude state, but ranks it with orpiment, and declares it poisonous.

It may indeed be suspected that the writers of that age went to the opposite extreme, too easily admitting the poisonous quality of these minerals, which were the subject of their Chymical operations, the more illustriously to display, among the ignorant laity, the supernatural powers of their mystical art.

Yet this difference of opinion, between the earlier and some of the later writers, may be otherwise accounted for, from the present mode of purifying that mineral before it comes into the hands of the Chymists. It is not improbable it may have been formerly sent to them without any preparation, but it is now separated from its natural impurities at the mines, by fusion in an earthen pot, whose bottom is perforated with a number of holes, the fusible antimony passing through, whilst the infusible substances remain behind. The melting vessel is let into another pot, sunk into the ground, which serves as a receiver. This last is of a conical figure, and such is the shape of the loaves of antimony met with in the shops[17].

But some of the modern chymists assert that, if crude antimony is reduced to so fine a powder that the shining spiculÆ cannot be seen, its operation is similar to mild kermes mineral[18], and Doctor James[19], and the author of the New Dispensatory[20], the greatest advocates for its perfect innocence, admit, that when acid, alcaline or oleaginous food have been taken liberally, it has proved violently emetic. It may therefore be fairly concluded, even on their authority, that the crude mineral contains such active particles as may, by accident or mismanagement be rendered extremely virulent.

The best modern authors on mineralogy who have carefully examined the antimonial ores, in their natural state, affirm that all of them are arsenical; and some of them were found in Carls ort, in the mine of Salberg, about the end of the last century, so similar to arsenical ores as to be preserved in cabinets, as specimens of arsenical pyrites, their real nature remaining undiscovered, till it was explained in the year 1748, by Mr. Van Swob master of the mines, in a treatise communicated to the royal academy of sciences at Stockholm[21].

Antimony also frequently contains a portion of lead[22], the poisonous qualities of which have been clearly demonstrated by the learned Doctor Baker in his elaborate critical dissertations on that subject, published in the transactions of the college of physicians of London, and by the ingenious Doctor Percival in his observations and experiments on the poison of lead.