338 

 ANTIMONY. 



BY THOMAS D. ROCK. 



Many economic substances of great practical utility to man, either lie 

 hidden beneath the vestments of science, or are lost in the obscurity of 

 application. Such a substance is the metal antimony ; and although 

 the name antimony, as popularly applied to various chemical preparations, 

 is familiar as a household word, yet how few persons know aught of the 

 history of this metal beyond the fact of its being a most subtile poison, 

 or are at all acquainted with its valuable metallurgical qualities ! 



The history of antimony, or rather of the most abundant ore of this 

 metal, commences at a very remote period ; for the sulphide of antimony 

 was known as early as the year 884 B.C., when Queen Jezebel, of infamous 

 memory, used it as a pigment, — "put her eyes in painting, tired" her head, 

 and looked out of a window."* The sulphuret was not, however, known 

 at this distant date by the name of antimony, but was distinguished 

 doubtless by some Chaldee or Hebrew name synonymous with the 

 Sanscrit " Saubira," or the Arabic " Kohul." By the Greeks it was 

 called 'StL/a/ii, and in the Latin tongue Stibium ; and it is highly probable 

 that our forefathers really imagined this ore, with its bright metallic 

 lustre, to be the metal itself. 



The discovery of metallic antimony, now called regulus of antimony, 

 is by general consent attributed to the celebrated German monk and 

 alchemist Basil Valentine, who lived in the fourteenth century, and in 

 whose writings the most marvellous virtues are imputed to this metal ; 

 especially in one little book devoted exclusively to the subject, and 

 entitled ' Currus Antimonii Triumphalis.' Even the name antimony is 

 traced to this curious and wonder-loving disciple of the mysterious art, 

 in a curious anecdote which I copy verbatim from Poiret's 'History of 

 Drugs :' — " It acquired the name of antimony from the aforesaid Valentine, 

 who, in his search after the philosopher's stone, was wont to make use 

 of it for the more ready fluxing of his metals ; and throwing one day a 

 parcel of it to some swine, he observed that they had eaten it, and were 

 thereby purged very violently, but afterwards grew the fatter upon it, 

 which made him harbour an opinion that the same sort of cathartic 

 exhibited to those of his own fraternity might do them much service ; 

 but his experiment succeeded so ill that every one who took of it died. 

 This, therefore, was the reason of this mineral being called antimony 

 (anti-monk), as destructive of the monks." 



In France, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the medicinal 

 preparations of antimony were alternately permitted and proscribed by 

 Parliamentary authority, just as their properties were esteemed or feared 

 by the practitioners of the day. And with these brief allusions to the 

 ancient history of antimony, I will at once proceed to a more general 

 account of the same. 



* 2 Kings ix. 80. 



