The opinions of different authors on this subject have not been more various than those of the same person at different times. In the year 1737 Dr. Huxham asserts, without reserve, that no medicine is more safe or more efficacious than Vinum Benedictum, which, from a supposition of its possessing all the powers of this mineral, he calls essence of antimony[65]. But after almost twenty years further experience, he declares, whoever would give antimony with safety and success, should be well acquainted with its analysis and component principles, and should know what different combinations, preparations, and doses, will effect, otherwise it may prove a poison instead of a remedy[66]. From what has already been advanced, it will not be difficult to account for these contradictory reports. Different specimens of antimony when dug out of the mines are not made up of the same component parts; and it is so changed by fusion, that different pieces of the same lump are not of equal virtue[67]. There are few antimonial preparations which may not be made by various processes, none of which can be conducted with such accuracy as uniformly to produce a medicine of invariable strength, and their operation is rendered yet more precarious by their combination with a variety of humours, food, drink and medicines in the stomach. But since no judgment can be formed from the opposite and contradictory opinions of others, it may now be proper to mention the result of my own experience and observation. In one instance, I have seen a dangerous pleuritic fever, of seven days standing, accompanied with an incessant cough, a hard, full, quick pulse, laborious breathing, and violent pain in the breast, perfectly cured in a few hours by the use of antimonial wine[68]. A dropsy of two years standing, occasioned by a tedious remitting fever, and accompanied with an obstruction in the liver, which had withstood the diligent application of a variety of medicines, under the direction of several skilful practitioners, was cured in a few days by a medicine which owed its efficacy to tartar emetic[69]. An obstinate dysentery, which had long resisted many other methods of cure, was perfectly removed by two doses of the vitrum antimonii ceratum. Encouraged by these signal instances of the efficacy of antimonial medicines, and by the universal prejudice in their favour, I have used them in many thousand cases, but never, even in slighter diseases with the same success. When given with much attention and caution, they have generally failed where milder medicines have proved effectual, and in some instances they have been prejudicial. In a recent dropsy and visceral obstructions occasioned by a remitting fever, tartar emetic was prescribed not only without success, but with an apparent aggravation of the symptoms, which were afterwards perfectly removed by the use of Peruvian bark, snake-root and rhubarb[70].