Some of the old writers insisted that antimony (the native sulphide)
was used as a medicine by Hippocrates who called it Tetragonon, which
simply meant four-cornered, and of which we also know that it was made
up with the milk of a woman. The reason which the iatro-chemists gave
for believing that this compound was made from antimony was worthy of
the age when it was the practice to apply enigmatic names to medicinal
substances, a practice, however, quite foreign to Hippocrates. They
understood the term to imply four natures or virtues, and they said
antimony had four virtues, namely, sudorific, emetic, purgative, and
cordial; therefore tetragonon meant antimony.