The Hungarian and Transylvanian, of which little or none comes to us, is esteemed much the best for medicinal use. The English seems of all others the least proper for that purpose, frequently containing a portion of lead[7], which is not separable by any of the common methods of purification, or else the English miners are unacquainted with the method of purifying it in foreign countries. The celebrated Dr. Hunter has in his museum, eighteen curious specimens of antimony, very different from each other: some are covered with a white calcareous crust; some, in external appearance, resemble cobalt[8]; others the lead ores; and others, those of arsenic; some are almost perfectly black; some have red striæ, interspersed throughout the ore, and others shining spiculæ like polished steel. But as they have not yet been assayed, no very probable conjecture can be formed concerning their component parts, nor of the proportion they bear to each other. Chymists have not been sufficiently accurate in pointing out the signs by which the purity of this mineral is to be distinguished. Basil Valentine says, it is of two kinds which are very different, one is beautiful and possessed of some of the properties of gold. The other has more of sulphur and not so much affinity to gold, it is distinguished by beautiful, white shining striæ. The one is much to be preferred to the other for the purpose of the medicine as well as alchymy[9]. Some direct antimony to be tried by rubbing the powder with a strong dog’s tooth upon yellow paper, where, if it leaves a red spot it is pure. Others order a tincture to be made with spirit of vinegar and evaporated on an iron plate, and if it leaves a red powder it is reputed good. It is also said to be good, when it is not spongy, but heavy, and when it evaporates by a strong heat[10]. The earlier chymical writers who praise it highly, scruple not to own that it is, in its natural state, a virulent poison. Basil Valentine, its greatest advocate, though he admits that it is given by farmers to their cattle, when they intend to make them fat and smooth; yet declares it to be truly poisonous, and strictly prohibits the use of it unprepared. Paracelsus, as well as Glauber,[11] recommends it as an external application in the cure of cancers, judging it superior even to arsenic in all corroding diseases, and expresses his ardent wishes that it should be substituted in place of all other remedies, that the reproach of the chirurgical art might be removed, and our humanity might not be offended with such numbers of maimed and mutilated objects[12]. He highly extols its preparations, and attributes to some of them the power of giving the bloom of youth to decrepit old age, but strictly prohibits its internal use unprepared, and treats particularly of the baneful influence of the crude mineral, in his book on the diseases occasioned by working in mines and in metals.