But this manner of preparing it is condemned by Hoffman; who affirms, that the reguline or arsenical parts are not sufficiently sheathed by the sulphureous, as appears from many circumstances which he mentions, but especially from its violent emetic quality. He recommends a different process, by which he supposes the sulphur to be so blended with the reguline, or arsenical particles as to render it a mild and effectual diaphoretic.
The fate of antimony and its preparations has been as various as the reports concerning their efficacy are contradictory. They have been ranked among the wonders of the world, and their virtues extolled beyond all probability. They have again been proscribed as baneful, and prohibited under the severest penalties.
Those who used antimony in Rome were sent to the gallies. It was prohibited in France by an edict of parliament in 1566; and in 1609 a physician was expelled the faculty of Paris for prescribing it. The edict was repealed in 1650, and it was again received into the number of purgatives; but this having been found inconvenient or dangerous, its general use was prohibited by a new edict in 1668, and it was only permitted to be prescribed by Doctors of the faculty.
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.