ANTIMONY. 
§ 79 1 -] 
commencement, the mucous membrane has been entirely removed by 
sloughing and ulceration, the circular muscular fibres being exposed. 
Above the upper limit of this ulcer, the mucous membrane presents 
several oval, elongated, and ulcerated areas, occupied by strips of mucous 
membrane which have sloughed. In other places, irregular portions of 
the mucous membrane, of a dull ashen-grey colour, have undergone 
sloughing ; the edges of the sloughing portion are of colours varying 
from brown to black. 
It is seldom that so much change is seen in the gullet and pharynx 
as this museum preparation exhibits ; but redness, swelling, and the 
general signs of inflammation are seldom absent from the stomach and 
some parts of the intestines. On the lining membrane of the mouth, 
ulcers and pustules have been observed. 
In Dr Nevin’s experiments on the chronic poisoning of rabbits 
already referred to, the post-mortem appearances consisted in congestion 
of the liver in all the rabbits ; in nearly all there was vivid redness of 
the stomach ; in two cases there was ulceration ; in some, cartilaginous 
hardness of the pylorus, while in others the small intestines presented 
patches of inflammation. In two of the rabbits the solitary glands 
throughout the intestines were prominent, yellow in colour, and loaded 
with antimony. The colon and rectum were healthy, the kidneys 
congested ; the lungs were in most congested, in some actually inflamed, 
or hepatised and gorged with blood. Bloody extravasations in the chest 
and abdomen were frequent. 
Salkowsky, 1 in feeding animals daily with antimony, found invariably 
in the course of fourteen to nineteen days fatty degeneration of the 
liver, and sometimes of the kidney and heart. In the experiment of 
Caillol and Livon also all the organs were pale, the liver had undergone 
fatty degeneration, and the lung had its alveoli filled with large 
degenerated cells, consisting almost entirely of fat. The mesenteric 
glands also formed large caseous masses, yellowish-white in colour, 
which, under the microscope, were seen to be composed of fatty cells, so 
that there is a complete analogy between the action of arsenic and 
antimony on the body tissues. 
§ 791. Elimination of Antimony. —Antimony is mainly eliminated 
by the urine. _ In 1840, Orfila showed to the Academie de Medecine 
metallic antimony which he had extracted from a patient who had 
taken -12 grm. of tartar emetic in twenty-four hours. He also obtained 
antimony from an old woman, aged 80, who twelve hours before had 
taken -6 grm. (9J grains)—a large dose, which had produced neither 
vomiting nor purging. In Dr Nevin’s experiments on rabbits, antimony 
was discovered in the urine after the twelfth dose, and even in the urine 
h Virchow’s Arch. f. path. Anat., Bd. xxv. ; also, Centralblatt f. med. Wissen 
No. 23, 1865. 
