Observations on antimony / Read before the Medical Society of London, and published at their request

by John Millar

These different judgments can scarce be supposed to have been delivered by competent judges concerning the same medicine, but may be accounted for from the different manner in which the process for making the calx may have been conducted. The common nitre, with which it is prepared, contains some portion of sea-salt, and when that abounds, the proportion of nitre being less, the calx may prove an active remedy[52].

If it is not sufficiently calcined, or perfectly freed from the reguline parts by washing, such of these as remain, may produce more sensible effects than are to be expected when it is duly prepared, and hence perhaps proceed the contradictory opinions of chymists and physicians concerning this antimonial preparation.

But the assertion of its being a mere inert earth, is not well founded, since a small dose of it sometimes produces violent effects; and it may be reduced by fusion, with inflammable fluxes, into pure regulus. It enters the composition of a medicine described by the judicious Doctor Morton, with which, in three instances, he cured an obstinate intermitting fever. In one case the disease was of two years standing, and in all of them had resisted a diligent and skilful application of the Peruvian bark. But these were the only opportunities he had of trying it; for having never met with any other case in which that excellent febrifuge disappointed his expectation, he deemed it an unpardonable wantonness to use a precarious remedy, while he was possessed of one more certain and efficacious[53]. It is also recommended by Van Swieten in the peripneumony, as a deobstruent and expectorant[54].

Crocus of antimony is made by deflagrating equal parts of antimony and nitre: it operates as a violent emetic when given from two to six grains. A preparation of this kind, recommended to the London College of Physicians by one of their own members, under the title of milder crocus of antimony, as a medicine of mild operation and eminently efficacious, was inserted in their Dispensatory; but the committee appointed to review and correct it having had some comparative trials reported to them of this and the common crocus, which rendered them dubious of their effects, were induced to leave the matter to be further examined[55].

It is seldom prescribed: but an extraordinary cure is said to have been performed by the milk of an ass that had drank water in which it was accidently infused[56]; and from such an improbable story, an eminent physician was induced to use the milk of a goat which drank the same kind of water.

Antimonial wine was formerly ordered, in the London Dispensatory, to be made, by infusing an ounce of powdered glass of antimony in two pints of claret; and is commended by Salmon, as a strong vomit, under the name of vinum rubellum.

The vinum benedictum is made by infusing an ounce of crocus metallorum in a pint and an half of Spanish white wine. A third form is, to digest two ounces of regulus of antimony in three pints of white wine. This last preparation is declared by Salmon to be an excellent medicine in fevers and agues, and in obstructions of the bowels, emptying them of all evil humours. It perfectly cures the falling-sickness, convulsions, cramps, gout, sciatica and almost all other disorders. Another tincture of antimony is directed by the same author, and is said, on account of its many virtues, to be a gift sent from God. It cures the plague and all pestilential fevers. A tincture of antimony is also directed by Basil Valentine, eight drops of which are said to be a remedy for all diseases.

The simple infusion of crocus, glass, or regulus of antimony in wine, if not more efficacious, is at least less dangerous than those preparations which are made by more elaborate chymical processes, since the accuracy and attention of those who prescribe it, will not so readily be defeated by the carelessness or ignorance of an operative chymist. But though it may be given with greater safety than other antimonials, yet the extravagant encomiums bestowed upon it are contradicted by the testimony of the faithful, attentive and judicious Sydenham. That candid physician expresses his wishes, that instead of the infusion of crocus of antimony, we had safer vomits sufficiently efficacious. When called to infants, and observing a vomit indicated, whereby they might have been preserved from danger, he durst not give this infusion for fear of bad consequences. He was cautious of giving it, even to grown people, though, when plentifully diluted, he found no ill effect from it; but he positively declares that, in a continued fever, it is by no means safe to give it to children under the age of fourteen; and expects no other benefit from it, than what might be obtained by milder emetics[57].

But the obsolete opinions of the universal efficacy of antimonial wine, although expressly contradicted by the chaster judgement of Sydenham, were again revived in their full force by Dr. Huxham. In the year 1737 he recommended the vinum benedictum, in a manner that might rather have been expected from the mystical chymists, in times of ignorance and superstition, than from an able and experienced physician, in a liberal and enlightened age[58]. As he had obtained much influence and authority in his profession, his earnest recommendation could not fail widely to extend the use of this medicine in regular practice; and when further experience induced him to speak of it in more moderate terms, and physicians to look out for less precarious remedies, a new and infallible antimonial medicine, known by the name of the fever-powder, was published, which brought us again back to the abuse of antimonial preparations, which had already been often exploded.