_Of the Natural History of Antimony._
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.