This is not taking a hint from the effects of antimony on swine, but a direction to give it to those animals when they are to be made fat. It is the more necessary to point out this mistake, since Basil Valentine is quoted by this author, as having maintained the safety and efficacy of crude antimony, though he constantly asserts it, in its natural state, to be virulent and poisonous. _I shall be the first_, says he, _to protest and exclaim against those, who, being ignorant of the method of preparation, give poisons to mankind, for mercury, orpiment, and antimony are poisonous, and will ever remain so, unless they are fitly prepared_[15]: and again, _If antimony is given without being prepared, it will quickly kill the patient_[16].
Hence it appears, though he highly extols the preparations of antimony, yet he not only exclaims against using it in its crude state, but ranks it with orpiment, and declares it poisonous.
It may indeed be suspected that the writers of that age went to the opposite extreme, too easily admitting the poisonous quality of these minerals, which were the subject of their Chymical operations, the more illustriously to display, among the ignorant laity, the supernatural powers of their mystical art.
Yet this difference of opinion, between the earlier and some of the later writers, may be otherwise accounted for, from the present mode of purifying that mineral before it comes into the hands of the Chymists. It is not improbable it may have been formerly sent to them without any preparation, but it is now separated from its natural impurities at the mines, by fusion in an earthen pot, whose bottom is perforated with a number of holes, the fusible antimony passing through, whilst the infusible substances remain behind. The melting vessel is let into another pot, sunk into the ground, which serves as a receiver. This last is of a conical figure, and such is the shape of the loaves of antimony met with in the shops[17].
But some of the modern chymists assert that, if crude antimony is reduced to so fine a powder that the shining spiculæ cannot be seen, its operation is similar to mild kermes mineral[18], and Doctor James[19], and the author of the New Dispensatory[20], the greatest advocates for its perfect innocence, admit, that when acid, alcaline or oleaginous food have been taken liberally, it has proved violently emetic. It may therefore be fairly concluded, even on their authority, that the crude mineral contains such active particles as may, by accident or mismanagement be rendered extremely virulent.