346 
ANTIMONIAL POISONING. 
Equine animal, which M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire considers 
to be a new species. It belongs to the section of the great 
Equus of which Dr. Gray has formed his genus Asinus. It 
is most nearly allied to the Djiggetai ( Equus ( Asinus ) Hemionus ), 
but differs from that species in the smaller size and better 
shape of the head, its shorter ears, and its tail partially covered 
with long hairs. It thus appears to be intermediate between 
the Djiggetai and the Horse, for which reason M. Saint- 
Hilaire proposed to name it Equus hemippus. Its colour is 
the same as that of the Djiggetai, and, like that species, it 
has a blackish mane and dorsal line. It is supposed to be a 
native of the deserts of Syria between Palmyra and Bag- 
dad . — Comptes Rendus. Magazine of Natural History . 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ON ANTIMONIAL POISONING. 
A PHYSIOLOGICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY. 
By Benjamin W. Richardson, m.d. 
As it is my intention, in the following essay, to endeavour 
to dig up a little new ground on the subject of antimonial 
poisoning, rather than to recall attention to observations 
already recorded in the literature of medicine, I shall refer to 
but one or two matters of an historical kind. 
Antimony, as a medicinal or a poisonous agent, seems to 
have been first supplied to the world by the alchemists towards 
the close of the fourteenth centunr. It was known to the 
Greeks and the Romans under the name which it still main- 
tains in chemical language — viz., stibium ; and as a metal 
many remarkable chemical properties were attributed to it. 
Basil Valentine, a German monk, first drew attention to its 
medicinal qualities in a work entitled 4 Currus Triumphalis 
Antimonii.’ Valentine lauded some preparation of antimony, 
which he had himself invented, as a specific for almost every 
form of disease ; but owing, possibly, to the extent of this 
pretension, he did not succeed in establishing its claims. The 
origin of the term antimonium is said by Dr. Mayne, who 
follows Dr. Pereira in this matter, to be, “ uvri — for or against 
— and minium — vermilion, because used by females in aid of 
the rouge used for heightening the complexion.” I do not 
know from what data this derivation is obtained, but cer- 
