350 
ANTIMONIAL POISONING. 
It is obvious that, to learn any new fact under this head, 
we must fall back upon a system of rigid, unbiassed, and 
laborious physiological research of the comparative kind. 
From the diseased subject, under antimonial treatment, we 
can never eliminate fairly and rigidly the true influence of 
the medicine on life ; for the symptoms of the disease com- 
plicate the symptoms produced by the medicine, and the 
pathology of the disease rubs out the pathological characters 
induced by the drug. 
The physiological facts which we at the present time pos- 
sess regarding the effects of antimony are very limited. 
Pereira sums them up in his peculiarly comprehensive and 
masterly style. Herbivorous animals bear larger doses, as it 
would seem, than animals of the carnivorous or omnivorous 
kinds. Magendie found that tartar emetic produced the same 
effects, when thrown into the veins, as it did when given by 
the stomach. He considered that its chief action was con- 
fined to the intestinal canal and lungs. Traces of pneumonia, 
gastritis, and enteritis were found after death. Rayer, Bonnet, 
and Campbell found no such lesion of the lungs. Orfila has 
detected antimony in the viscera of animals to whom it had 
been given by the mouth. In further experiments also recorded 
by Orfila, and referred to with great effect by Dr. Webster, in 
a letter to the Lancet of January 26th, it is stated, on direct 
experiment, that antimony may be found in some of the 
animal tissues at periods of three, and even four, months 
after it has ceased to be administered. 
These details, with the addition of one or two others, in 
which it has been shown that ligature of the oesophagus 
increases the depressing effects of the antimony, and that 
division of the pneumogastric nerves checks the efforts to 
vomit, comprise almost all that has been done, in the way of 
direct experiment, on the subject of the physiological action 
of antimony. 
Under such circumstances, I have thought that it would of 
necessity be a rich and useful study to make a careful experi- 
mental inquiry, of a physiological character, into this wide 
and open field of research. The points which seem to require 
closest investigation are as follow : — 
1 . By what surfaces may antimony be received into the body? 
2. Its diffusion throughout the system, and its election by 
different organs. 
3. The mode of its elimination, and the periods at which it 
is eliminated. 
4. The physiological changes, or, in other words, the 
pathological conditions, to which it gives rise. 
