QUALITIES. This article appears in the market in conical loaves, which are dark grey externally, but internally possess a bladed structure and considerable brilliancy; the Edinburgh and Dublin colleges direct this substance to be levigated with water, and kept in the state of powder; it should however never be purchased in that form, as it is not unfrequently adulterated with sulphuret of lead, whereas it cannot contain such admixture when its form is characteristically crystalline and bladed. CHEMICAL COMPOSITION. Antimony 100, Sulphur 35·572. From the time of Basil Valentine to the present, this preparation has been known in the market by the name of _Antimony_, a name which it is evident can only with propriety be applied to the pure metal. SOLUBILITY. It is insoluble in water and alcohol; since however it is slightly acted upon by vegetable acids, cups were formerly made of it, which imparted to wine that stood in them for some time, an emetic quality.[374] USES. It is principally employed for the preparation of the other antimonial combinations, for which purpose it is more eligible than the metal itself, as being less contaminated with metallic impurities. Its medicinal energies depend altogether upon the state of the stomach, and must therefore be extremely uncertain; when it meets with any acid in the stomach, it acts with extreme violence, a circumstance which requires precaution. It was formerly much more employed as an Alterative than at present. Stoll recommends its use in chronic rheumatism, and advises its union with Myrrh. In the treatment of affections of the skin it has been long used, both singly, and in union with other substances, such as _Conium_, _Dulcamara_, _Guaiacum_, &c. In Scrophulous diseases, connected with cutaneous eruptions, or ulcerations, it has been a favourite remedy with many practitioners, and it forms the basis of several foreign _Nostrums_. In times of remote antiquity it was used by females as a black pigment for staining the eye-lashes, a custom which continues to this day in the east.[375] It is at present given to horses mixed with their food, to make their coats smooth, and very large doses may be given to these animals without producing any deleterious effects. OFFICINAL PREPARATIONS. Dr. Black constructed a table representing a view of all the preparations whose basis was antimony; many of these however have fallen into disuse, and the nomenclature of all is changed. The following arrangement of the medicines prepared from the sulphuret of antimony,[376] is presented to us by Mr. Thomson, in his London Dispensatory. 1. BY TRITURATION, _Sulphuretum Antimonii Præparatum_. E.D. 2. BY THE ACTION OF HEAT WITH PHOSPHATE OF LIME, (oxidized) _Pulvis Antimonialis_, L.D. _Oxidum Antimonii cum Phosphate Calcis._ E. 3. BY THE ACTION OF ALKALIES, (oxidized), _Antimonii Sulphuretum Præcipitatum._ L.E. _Sulphur Antimoniatum Fuscum_. D. 4. BY THE ACTION OF ACIDS, (oxidized,) _Antimonii Oxydum_. L.