Antimony - Victorian Health and Medicine

ANTIMONY is a metal of a silver grey colour, which for commercial purposes is chiefly used as an alloy with other metals. For medical uses a great variety of preparations are made from it, but it is chiefly employed for the cure of febrile and inflammatory diseases when at their height, its operation being to increase the action of the skin, to promote perspiration, and to stimulate the fliuids of the stomach and the biliary secretions.

The mode of administering this medicine in inflammatory diseases, is from a quarter of a grain, or less, to one grain (according to the character of the inflammation), dissolved in water, and given every two hours until the fever subsides. This remedy, when applied with caution and skill, often effects a cure in the most aggravated cases of fever, without subjecting the system to the debilitating effects which bleeding and other violent remedies entail.

In larger doses antimony excites vomiting and in this character is commonly known as tartar emetic, the ease with which it produces the desired effect causes it to be much used for this purpose. It should be known, however, that in cases of poisoning antimony should be by no means administered, as its action is always preceded by nausea, during which time the poison would be absorbed by the stomach.

ANTIMONY WINE. - Dissolve two scruples of tartar emetic in sixteen ounces of boiling distilled water, filter, and add four ounces of rectified spirits of wine. In cases of acute rheumatism six drachms of this wine, mixed with one drachm of laudanum, will form an excellent compound, of which twenty drops may be taken in water four times a day. For eruptions of the skin also the following mixture will be found beneficial:- Mix four drachms of antimouial wine, one drachm of laudanum, and one drachm of the solution of oxymuriate of mercury, of which twenty-five drops may be taken in water every night and morning.

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