According to _Thenard_,[298] antimony is susceptible of no less than six different degrees of oxidation; _Proust_, however, has shewn that they may all be reduced to two, viz. _protoxide_ and _peroxide_. The former of which alone exerts any sensible activity upon the human body; but this constitutes the basis of several preparations, which although in common use for medical purposes, are so extremely poisonous in larger doses, as to render them objects of interest to the forensic physician. EMETIC TARTAR.[299] _Tartarized Antimony._ This saline body appears in the state of white crystals, whose primitive figure is the regular tetrahedron, although it assumes a variety of secondary forms. Its chemical composition is still involved in some obscurity; it is stated, in the different dispensatories, to be a triple salt, consisting of tartaric acid, oxide of antimony, and potass, and that it ought therefore, according to the principles of the reformed nomenclature, to be termed a _Tartrate of Antimony and Potass_. The truth of these views, however, we have already[300] ventured to question; _Gay Lussac_ has stated that in the various metalline compounds of which _Super-tartrate of Potass_ is an ingredient, this latter substance acts the part of a simple acid; an opinion which receives considerable support from the great solvent property of _cream of tartar_, and from the striking fact that it is even capable of dissolving various oxides which are insoluble in tartaric acid, of which the protoxide of antimony is an example. In such a state of doubt, a better name could not be found than that of _tartarized antimony_. The salt, according to _Dr. Duncan_, is soluble in three times its weight of distilled water at 212° _Fah._ and in fifteen, at 60°. When it is heated red hot in an earthen crucible, it blackens, and undergoes decomposition like a vegetable body, leaving a residuum of metallic antimony, and slightly carbonated potass. _Symptoms of Poisoning by Emetic Tartar._