[ 8 4 2 ] 
earth, that wifie, kept in glafs- bottles, made of fuch 
ill-prepared vitreous matter, difiblves fome of the 
falts, and thence the wine becomes ill-tafted and 
unwholfome. Moreover, the preparation of the vi- 
trum ceratum antimonii feems not a little to con- 
firm the reality of what I have hinted at ; for the 
wax perhaps doth nothing but fheath up the point- 
ed reguline particles, when melted with them : and 
this appears the more probable, as a large quantity 
of brimftone, melted with white arfenic, fheaths up 
the arfenical lpicula, and renders them incompa- 
rably lefs noxious than before : fo, with a due quan- 
tity of fulphur, glafs of antimony itfelf is rendered 
a very mild kind of regulus. 
5 Tis exceeding difficult to explain the modus ope- 
randi of many medicines. Who can fay, how a grain 
or two of crude opium caufes a profound fleep ? or 
why a very fmall dofe of cantharides fo particularly 
and ftrongly affedts the urinary paffages ? why two 
or three grains of elaterium operate with more vio- 
lence than fifty or fixty of jalap ? or why fuch a 
very fmall quantity of glafs of antimony excites fuch 
dreadful vomitings ? 
But whether the emetic quality of antimony de- 
pends on the fpiculine form, or not, it certainly lies 
only in the reguline fubftance j for not one of the 
preparations of that mineral is emetic, but when 
confiderably impregnated with reguline particles ; 
which, when not inveloped with too much fulphur, 
always exert a vomiting faculty ; and this, whether 
given in fubftance, or diffolved in a proper men- 
ftruum, as wine, cyder, vinegar, or the like. Water, 
as water, draws nothing from an antimonial regulus, 
• 2 as 
