ANTIMONIAL POISONING. 
347 
tainly it is not the one handed down by history. The tra- 
dition regarding its name is connected with Basil Valentine 
aforesaid, who, having, we are told, observed that a prepara- 
tion of antimony, thrown to some hogs, first purged them, 
and then made them grow fat, thought it would be at once an 
interesting, scientific, and perhaps humane experiment, to 
see whether it would have a similar happy effect on the sacred 
wearers of the cowl and cross. With these excellent inten- 
tions, and reserving his own person for after research, he 
dosed his fellow-monks in the same manner as he had seen 
the pigs so successfully treated. Such, however, was the 
perversity of human nature, or such the error of the experi- 
meyitum crucis , that the result, as often occurs in experimental 
inquiries, was not in strict accordance with a priori reason- 
ing. The monastic constitution, reduced, no doubt, by prayers 
and long fasts, rebelled against such strong food. It was 
death that fattened on the experiment, not the monks, the 
whole of whom died after tasting the promising potion, 
leaving the bereaved Basil to write ultimately his c Currus 
Triumphalis Antimonii. 5 Hence, says tradition, the origin 
of the name — dvri — against; fxovayjos — a monk, — the stuff 
that would not agree with the monks — antimony. 
About a hundred years after this event, the famous Para- 
celsus re-introduced antimony into the medical world. But 
it was received with disfavour, and the Parliament of Paris, 
deeming it a dangerous poison, passed a law against its use as 
a medicine ; and Besnier, a Parisian physician, was positively 
expelled the faculty for so employing it. At last it was recog- 
nised as a medicinal agent, and in 1637 it was entered in the 
State Register of Medicines of Paris, classed under the head 
of “ Purgatives.” 
The most violent opponent of antimony about this period 
was one Gui Patin, a distinguished physician and professor, 
who, in the Royal College of France, succeeded to the chair 
of the famous Riolan, to whom our Harvey wrote his immortal 
disquisitions. Gui Patin’s tirade against antimony is em- 
bodied in his letters, and is entitled the “ Martyrology of 
Antimony.” He herein drew out a list or register of the 
persons who had been killed by the physicians with this 
remedy, and said very many bitter things in support of his 
arguments. 
But when once introduced fairly into medicine, the virtues, 
real or supposed, of the new drug soon outdid all the clamours 
raised against it, and in one or other of its preparations it has 
retained its reputation to the present day. At various times, 
various forms of antimonv have been medicinallv used. At 
