were in use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more perhaps
in Germany than in this country. The one illustrated is in the Museum
of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street. It was bought for a shilling at a
sale at Christies’ in 1858, and was described in the catalogue as “An
old metal cup, with German inscription and coronet, gilt, in woodcase.”
The cups are said to have been made of an alloy of tin and antimony,
and wine standing for a time in one of them would become slightly
impregnated with emetic tartar, the tartar of the wine acting on the
film of oxide of antimony which would form on the inner surface of the
cup. How far these cups were used in families does not appear, but it
is said they were common in monasteries, and that monks who took too
much wine were punished by having to drink some more which had been
standing in the poculum emeticum. Dr. Walter Harris, in “Pharmacopœia
Anti-Empirica” (1683) refers to the cups, and says, “their day is
pretty well over. It is rare to meet with one now.”
It was supposed by the early chemical physicians that antimony imparted
emetic properties to wine without any loss of weight. Angelo Sala tells
of a German who attained some fame in his time by letting out a piece
of glass of antimony on hire. The patient was instructed to immerse
this in a cup of wine for three, four, or five hours (according to the
strength of the person prescribed for), and then to drink the wine. The
practitioner charged a fee of a dozen fresh eggs for the use of his
stone, and, as he had hundreds of clients, patients had to wait their
turn for their emetic.