Al-Kohol.
The antimony known to the ancients as stibium or stimuli was the native sulphide which Eastern women used for darkening their eyelashes. Probably it was used by Jezebel when, expecting Jehu at Samaria, “she painted her eyes and tired her head.” The Hebrew expression is “she put her eyes in paint,” and the Hebrew word for the paint is Phuph; (2 Kings, c. 9, v. 30). In Ezekiel, c. 23, v. 40, a debauched woman is described who painted her eyes, and in this case the Hebrew word employed is Kohol. The Septuagint translated both Phuph and Kohol by stimmi. The method is still used by Arabic women. They have a little silver or ivory rod which they damp and dip into a finely levigated powder called ismed, and draw this between the eyelids. Karrenhappuch, one of Job’s daughters, meant a vessel of antimony. The writer of the Book of Enoch says that the angel Azazel taught the practice to women before the Flood. He “taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and coats of mail, and made known to them metals, and the art of working them; bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyebrows, and the most costly and choicest stones, and all colouring tinctures, so that the world was changed.” Some of the early Christian fathers condemned the vanity. “Inunge oculos non stibio diaboli, sed collyrio Christi,” writes Tertullian.
Alchemical Hopes of Antimony.
The alchemists and the early chemical physicians had great hopes of antimony. “They tormented it in every possible manner,” says Fourcroy, “in the hope of getting from it a universal remedy.” With it, too, they were convinced that they were coming near to the transmutation of other metals into gold. Noticing how readily it formed alloys with other metals they named it Lupus Metallorum, the Wolf of Metals. Their process for getting the Powder of Projection, as well as can be gathered from their mystic jargon was to first fuse the crude antimony, the sulphide, with iron which withdrew the sulphur from the antimony. The metal thus obtained they called the Martial Regulus of Antimony. Regulus, or little king, implied an impure gold. Combining this with corrosive sublimate and silver, and subliming the mixture they got the lunar butter of antimony. The sublimation had to be repeated eight or ten times, the residue, or fæces, being added to the sublimate every time. At last the sublimed butter of antimony was transferred to an oval glass vessel capable of containing twelve times its quantity, and hermetically sealed. The Philosophic Egg, as the vessel with its contents was called, was then placed in a sand-bath and kept at a moderate heat for several months. When it had become converted into a red powder, the operation was finished. This powder was the Powder of Projection. It was sprinkled on other metals in a state of fusion, mercury being an ingredient of the fused mass, and yellow gold was produced.
Antimonial Compounds.
By other processes the early experimenters obtained various other products. By simply heating crude antimony in a crucible they would sometimes get a vitreous substance in consequence of some of the silica of the crucible combining with the antimony. That was their glass of antimony, which was generally an oxide with some sulphide. In other cases the so-called liver of antimony resulted, a compound containing a larger proportion of the sulphide. This they also called crocus metallorum or saffron of the metals, and one or other of these products was originally the basis of antimonial wine.
It was digested with Rhine wine, and the tartar of the wine formed a tartrate of antimony, but, as may be supposed, the composition of the wine was very variable. Emetic tartar was subsequently substituted for the liver.
The crystalline protoxide of antimony obtained by inflaming, volatilising, and condensing the regulus was known as argentine flowers of antimony. The regulus heated with nitric acid yielded a compound of metal with antimonious acid, and was called mineral bezoar; a compound, really a suboxide, got by fusing sulphide of antimony and nitre was called diaphoretic antimony; the chloride, first made by distilling crude antimony (the native sulphide) with corrosive sublimate, yielded the thick soft butter of antimony; the addition of water to this chemical caused the precipitation of a white oxychloride which was long known as Algaroth’s powder, or mercury of life. It contained no mercury, but was the most popular emetic before the introduction of the tartrate. Victor Algarotti, who introduced it, was a physician, of Verona, who died in 1603. It was alleged that he was poisoned by his local rivals in consequence of the success of his remedy. He was also the inventor of a quintessence of gold.
The regulus of antimony in alloy with some tin was used to make the antimony cups from which antimonial wine originated. It was also made into the pilulæ perpetuæ, or everlasting pills, which, passing through the body almost unchanged, were kept as a family remedy and taken again and again. It is probable that the surface of these pills became slightly oxidised, and consequently acquired a medicinal effect.