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. That which next became fashionable, as having the greatest supposed resemblance, in its operation, to the celebrated fever-powder, was tartar emetic. It is prepared by boiling equal quantities of washed crocus of antimony and crystals of tartar in water. This, as being soluble in liquids, is said to be less precarious in its effects than the other solid preparations; yet the strength of it greatly depends upon the manner of conducting the process, for some of the tartar, in the ordinary method, will be apt to shoot by itself, retaining little of the crocus. Some have therefore advised, as soon as the solution is filtered, to carry the evaporation much further than is usually done, if not to the total exhalation of the liquor[59]. Its effects, however, are uncertain, six or eight grains sometimes proving a mild emetic; though in other cases, I have seen half a grain operate so severely as to bring on violent convulsions, and Newman has known three or four grains prove mortal. Fatal consequences have also happened from want of attention to the different methods of preparing this medicine. A Dutch physician, being accustomed to an emetic tartar made with salt of tartar, which was given in doses of ten, twelve, or fifteen grains, prescribed a like dose from a German shop, by which the patient vomited to death[60]. Kermes mineral, a preparation similar to golden sulphur of antimony, has been vended as a quack medicine in France and Germany, under the title of Mineral Centaury, Kermes or Alkermes Mineral, or Poudre des Chartreu, and in England by that of Wilson’s Panacæa, and Russel’s Powder. The king of France was at length persuaded by M. Dodart, his first physician, to purchase it from M. La Ligerie, a surgeon at Paris, and it was made publick in the year 1720: but, like all other catholicons, has lost its consequence since the secret has been divulged, and the medicine found to be a well-known preparation described by Glauber,[61] and the elder Lemery.[62]