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].