CHAPTER XVI.
OF POISONING WITH ANTIMONY.
The fourth genus of the metallic irritants includes the preparations
of antimony. Poisoning with antimonial preparations is not common.
They are employed extensively in medicine, however, and consequently
accidents have sometimes occurred with them. One of
them is also often foolishly used, in the way of amusement, to cause
sickness and purging, and likewise to detect servants who are suspected
of making free with their mistress's tea-box or whisky-bottle;
and in both of these ways alarming effects have sometimes been produced.
In 1837 a woman was tried in England for attempting to
poison a child with tartar-emetic; but the poison appeared to have
been given through ignorance.[1] In large doses some of the antimonial
compounds may cause death; and one of them, the chloride
of antimony, now very little used in this country, is a violent corrosive.
Section I.—Of the Chemical History and Tests for the preparations of Antimony.
Metallic antimony has a bluish-white colour, not liable to tarnish. Its specific gravity is 6·7. It is easily fused, but is not very volatile. In certain circumstances, however, it easily undergoes a spurious sublimation, by being carried along with gases disengaged while it is in the act of being reduced.
A great number of preparations of antimony were at one time to be found in the shop of the apothecary; but they are now reduced to a few. Those which require notice here are the oxide, chloride, and tartar-emetic.
The oxide [sesquioxide] is a white heavy powder, which is best known by its solubility in tartaric acid, and the effects of the tests for tartar-emetic on the solution. The chloride [sesquichloride], as usually seen, is a yellow or reddish liquid, but when pure is colourless. It is highly corrosive. It is readily known by the effect of water in decomposing it,—an insoluble white subchloride being thrown down, and hydrochloric acid remaining in solution. The latter is detected by nitrate of silver; and the precipitate is known by being soluble in a solution of tartaric acid, and then presenting the reactions of tartar-emetic. Tartar-Emetic.
In its solid state tartar-emetic forms regular tetraedral or more generally octaedral crystals, which are colourless when pure, efflorescent, and of a slightly metallic taste. As commonly seen in the shops it is in the form of a white, or pale yellowish-white powder.
- ↑ Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence, 1844, p. 206.
