Observations on antimony: Read before the Medical Society of London, and published at their request — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Observations on antimony: Read before the Medical Society of London, and published at their request
John Stuart Mill · en
Glauber also directs antimonial cups to be made for the purpose of
communicating an emetic quality to acid liquors, which according to him
produce the same effects as those prepared from orpiment[30]; Boerhaave
asserts that antimony seems to be of the same nature with arsenic[31];
Macquer informs us, that some of the antimonial ores contain a portion of
the same poisonous mineral[32]; and Cronstedt affirms that all of them
are arsenical[33].
Unless therefore those modern chymists, who assert the perfect innocence
of antimony, expect from us that implicit confidence which their
predecessors, who held a very different opinion, rigorously exacted, it
cannot, on their authority, be admitted that it does not contain arsenic.
Wonderful as the works are which they have atchieved, many secrets of
nature have escaped their researches, which may hereafter be discovered,
and many will, undoubtedly, elude all human investigation.
Nor is more credit due to those who assert that all arsenical particles
are volatilised, and carried off by the force of fire; the crocus,
regulus and glass of antimony containing such subtil virulent particles
as must for ever escape observation, since without losing in any degree
their specific gravity, they impart, almost inexhaustibly, an emetic
power to wine and other liquors, and the operation of these essences of
antimony, as they have been emphatically called, is similar to those of
arsenic.[34]
But although, in opposition to the testimony of the best chymical
writers, it should be granted that there is no arsenic in antimony, it
cannot be affirmed, that it does not contain poison, since by unfolding
its texture by the force or fire, it is rendered highly virulent; and by
the addition of various substances, in the stomach, it becomes violently
emetic[35].
By those who assert the perfect innocence of antimony, and extol its
virtues, orpiment is allowed to be a poisonous substance, and giving it
as a medicine, is declared a practice too dangerous to be followed[36],
yet it is ranked by Hoffman with antimony. It ought to be remarked, says
he, that orpiment was known to the ancient philosophers and physicians,
and universally deemed a poison, and to this day is sold for arsenic.
Yet it does not, when taken internally, give any molestation, either by
vomiting or purging, and may be given, in a large quantity, to dogs,
without hurting them. But if it is exposed to the fire, then, indeed, it
acquires a poisonous quality, as is also the case with antimony, which,
though in its natural crude state, it is rather a medicine than a poison,
yet when melted by fire it exerts a violent emetic power[37].