274 ANTIMONY. 



Coarse part of the powder immediately falls to the bottom, while 

 the finer particles are kept suspended for some time ; and on 

 pouring off" the water, and allowing them to subside slowly at the 

 bottom of the vessel, an inodorous, insipid, blackish powder is 

 obtained, which is the Sulphuretum Antimonii prceparatum of the 

 Edinburgh and Dublin Colleges. This substance was used by the 

 ancients in collyria against inflammations of the eyes ; and for 

 staining the eye-brows black. Internally, it has been prescribed 

 as a remedy in gouty and rheumatic affections, in scrofula, and 

 particularly in chronic cutaneous eruptions. In a dose of from 

 gr. x. to 5ii. it acts as a sudorific, but the uncertainty of its opera- 

 tion and its occasional violent action, prevents it from being gene- 

 rally used in practice. When there is no free acid present in the 

 stomach it produces scarcely any sensible effect on the system ; but 

 when this is the case, it becomes oxidated, and proves violently 

 emetic and cathartic* 



From the grey sulphuret all the preparations of antimony 

 which have been applied to medical use are directed to be made 

 in the British pharmacopoeias. They have been divided into 

 those in which the metal is combined with oxygen, and those in 

 which it is brought into a saline state by combination with acids. 

 Though these preparations are of very different degrees of strength, 

 they all retain the same mode of action, and possess, therefore, 

 the same medicinal virtues. They do not exert any general ope- 

 ration on the system, but are always directed in their action to 

 particular parts, so as to occasion some sensible evacuation. Their 

 general effects are diaphoresis, nausea, full vomiting, and purging ; 

 but their determination to particular organs depends partly on the 

 dose, partly on the state of the stomach, and partly too on the 

 nature of the preparation. In all cases where it is desirable to pro- 

 mote the secretions in general, and those of the skin and alimentary- 

 canal, in particular, it is proper to have recourse to antimonial 

 remedies. In the treatment of intermittent as well as continued 

 fever, in the phlegmasia? and exanthemata, antimony has long been 

 more or less extensively used. It is given either so as to excite dia- 

 phoresis, or in larger doses to induce nausea, vomiting, and purging, 

 which may perhaps be best obtained by the form of emetic tartar. 



