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.