Part 4

But so far is this heinous charge of committing _murder_ to discredit the powder from being supported by any shadow of proof, that physicians, on the contrary, have been complaisant to excess, or culpably indolent, in suffering the many _misrepresentations_ concerning this medicine to pass uncensured and unexposed; and those who, from the most laudable principles, have refused to adopt it, are wanting to themselves, to their profession, and to the public, in neglecting to explain the honourable principles on which they have acted; while others from different motives, _which they can best justify to themselves_, have acquired fame and fortune by a _studied_ compliance with the popular prejudices in favour of this fashionable remedy.

In the course of more than twenty years practice, though I have never prescribed this medicine, yet, I have not, after fairly declaring my opinion, opposed its being given, when desired by the sick or their relations; and as the cure, where I have been concerned, has been wholly committed to it, without the addition of any medicine, or even regimen, excepting what is prescribed in the printed directions, or what the Inventor himself has ordered, some fair opportunities have occurred of observing its effects, to which, and to every other information that could be obtained, with a mind open to conviction, I have carefully attended. But in this, as in all our former researches, the evidence has been unfavourable to the fame of the powder.

In some instances it has occasioned fainting, convulsions, and other violent symptoms, which terrified those who gave it. In all which I have seen, it has proved unsuccessful, though, in some cases the cure has afterwards been accomplished by safer methods; and in those where it was too late to use other remedies, the sick have died, although it was probable they might have recovered by a different management, which has succeeded in similar instances, but from an abused and misplaced confidence, has too often been set aside to make way for this favourite medicine.

An argument still remains in favour of the powder drawn from the credit due to its Inventor. If that is impeached by what has already been advanced, it is only by the force of the evidence, since all personal application has been avoided. But as the reputation of the medicine is chiefly supported by an implicit confidence in the Inventor, it is necessary, however unpleasing, that this should also be considered.

When our assent is demanded, on the credibility of the relator, to any fact which we are not permitted to examine, we can only judge of its probability from his known accuracy and ability. Several specimens of these have occurred in the course of our enquiry. Quotations have been misrepresented[87]. Authorities misapplied[88]. Evidence produced which establishes facts, directly opposite to those in support of which it is perverted[89]. Palpable contradictions have been pointed out[90]; and an air of mystery and devotion detected, the tendency of which, when joined to a train of suspicious circumstances, cannot be mistaken[91].

But the inaccuracy betrayed in the directions given with the powder, is sufficient to put us on our guard. _The best general and plain direction_, we are told, _is to repeat half a paper, or ten grains and a half of the powder once in six hours[92], but in South America they seldom give less than twenty_, which the Inventor _thinks right_[93], yet when it fell under the direction of the navy-surgeons, the general rule which was avowedly intended, and is still continued, for the common people, was found to be fraught with danger, and the Inventor admits that it has been necessary to reduce the dose so low as two or three grains[94], thereby acknowledging _the best plain general direction, to be a very improper one for the common people_, since no good reason can be assigned, why ten or twenty-one grains should be given by those who have no medical skill, though it is judged necessary to warn others, who may be supposed capable of conducting its operation, and detecting and counteracting its pernicious effects, of the necessity of reducing it, in some cases, to two or three grains. The only solution of this parodox, is, _there is one faith for the learned, and another for the unlearned_.

But not to insist on the contradictions abounding in this dissertation, one more only shall be mentioned. No addition, it has been said, can be made to this medicine, by which its virtues will not be diminished, and that assertion has again been retracted; but as one affirmation is as good as another, that there may be no doubt which is to be credited, the Inventor _being extremely cautious of leading any one into error in an affair of so much importance as is that of life, thinks it imprudent to neglect repeated bleeding, purges, clysters, and all other assistances which the art of medicine can afford_[95], and is _obliged to own, that, as he esteemed life too sacred to be hazarded for the sake of an experiment, he had never neglected to call in all other medical aids to his assistance when he thought the case required them, and believed they would of service_[96]. But though he is _extremely cautious_, and though _life_ is too sacred to be hazarded, yet the experiment of using the powder without any addition or aid, is still to be tried _throughout the whole British dominions, and in other parts of the world, where our commerce has conveyed it_[97], excepting by the Inventor and the Navy Surgeons, _who being persons versed in practice will readily distinguish when the rules laid down are punctually to be followed and when not_[98].

The real motives assigned for these contradictions and this mysterious conduct, _waving whatever artifices might be employed by way of palliation or disguise, are represented without reserve, and with that sincerity which will stand the strictest scrutiny_. The Inventor _was very cautious of divulging a medicine of such vast importance, because if it failed of success, it would subject him to infinite reproach. He was so ignorant as to expect assistance and applause from every one concerned in any branch of physic, not considering that a miliary or nervous fever of twenty days continuance, was attended with greater emoluments than one that terminated in two or three. But he had soon an opportunity of discovering his error, for some became his avowed enemies, without the least pretence to any provocation; whilst others, with the countenance of friendship, pointed a dagger to his breast_[99], and therefore, after a contest between simplicity and caution, ignorance and shrewdness, the unsuspecting Inventor _thought it time prudently to consult his own interest, and the advancement of his private fortune, by securing to himself the exclusive privilege, and putting it out of the power of others to disguise, misrepresent, deny, or forge facts_[100].

Thus, from the parade, ostentation, and mysterious secrecy, with which this medicine has been published, from its resemblance to the Berlin specific febrifuge, from its being prepared from an arsenical mineral, and easily converted into a noxious substance; from the difficulty of ascertaining the dose, and conducting its operation, and from the necessity of calling in other medical aids to its assistance; from the incompetency of the generality of the witnesses in its favour; from the unfair conclusions drawn from their testimony; from the dangerous symptoms and fatal consequences, which have followed its administration; from the inaccuracy and inconsistency of its Inventor; and from the increase of the bills of mortality during its general use, it appears, not only, that no proof of its salutary efficacy has been produced, but that many circumstances and facts, which have been perverted to that purpose, concur to demonstrate its general and indiscriminate application to be highly dangerous to mankind, to whom, to borrow the language of the Inventor, _it is not material, whether they lose their lives by ignorance, mistake, or design_.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Prelati enim, et fratres, me jejuniis macerantes tuto custodiebant, nec aliquem ad me venire voluerant, veriti ne scripta mea, aliis quam summo pontifici et sibi ipsis pervenirent. Epistola Rogeri Bacon ad Clement. IV.

[2] Triumphal Chariot of Antimony.

[3] Id. p. 3, and p. 118.

[4] Paracelsus.

[5] Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, p. 93.

[6] Poppius’s Basilica Antimonii, Newman’s Chemistry, &c. &c.

[7] New Dispensatory, p. 21.

[8] Dr. James describes cobalt, from which the most virulent kind of arsenic is extracted, a ponderous, hard, fossil substance, almost black, not unlike antimony. Universal English Dispensatory, p. 288.

[9] Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, p. 37.

[10] See Schroder’s Pharmacopœia, Poppius’s Basilica Antimonii.

[11] Philosophical Furnaces, book i. and ii. and Mineral Work, part first.

[12] Ninth chapter of the first book of Surgery.

[13] Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, p. 187.

[14] Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, p. 188 and 189.

[15] Triumphal Chariot of Antimony, p. 64.

[16] Ibid. p. 49.

[17] Lemery Cours de Chymie, p. 283. Geoffrey’s Treatise of the Materia Medica, tom. i. p. 41. Poppius Basil. cap. 8. p. 216, Newman’s Chymistry, New Dispensatory, &c.

[18] Geoffroy Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences 1735.

[19] Dr. James’s Dispensatory, page 282.

[20] New Dispensatory, page 236.

[21] Cronstedt’s Essay toward a System of Mineralogy, translated by Da Costa, Sect. 135. p. 223. London 1772.

[22] See p. 14. Cronstedt’s Essay, sect. 236, and the New Dispensatory.

[23] Newman’s Chymistry, New Dispensatory, &c.

[24] Cronstedt’s Essay toward a System of Mineralogy, p. 223, 224. Stahl on the Arsenical Substance of Antimony. Hoffman of the wonderful, virulent and medical powers of Antimony, and the easy transition from one to the other.

[25] Id. Ibid.

[26] Stahl’s Chymico-Physico-Medical Works, page 488-591. On the arsenenical substance of antimony.

[27] New Dispensatory, page 343.

[28] New Dispensatory, p. 85 and 86.

[29] Basilica Antimonii, in the Appendix to Hartman’s Chymistry, p. 896.

[30] See the fifth part of the Philosophical Furnaces.

[31] Vol. I. Of the Theory of Chymistry, p. 31, of sulphureous semi-metals.

[32] Chymical Dictionary on the Ores of Antimony.

[33] Cronstedt’s Essay toward a System of Mineralogy, translated by Da Costa. London, 1772.

[34] Compare Glauber’s account of the effect of orpiment cups, in page 31, with that of essence of antimony in the fourth section.

[35] Mais quelquefois il se (antimoine) rencontre avec des sels acides qui l’ouvrent, (dans l’estomach, et dans les intestines) luy donnent une nouvelle fermentation, et lui sont produire des super-purgations incommodes. Traîte de l’antimoine, par M. Nicholas Lemery, p. 7.

[36] Dr. James’s, in his Dispensatory, page 285.

[37] Observationes Physico-Chymicæ, p. 233.

[38] We are told by Newman, that the utmost caution is necessary to avoid the fumes of arsenic, and that it is on account of the danger arising from them that this mineral has been so little examined by the chymists; but according to Dr. Percival’s late observations, they seem to have been mistaken. I have, says he, some doubt, whether the vapours of arsenic be so poisonous as is commonly supposed, and if the candid reader will excuse the digression, I will lay before him my reasons for it. To solder works of silver filligree, and other delicate manufactures of that kind, a composition is used of which arsenic is the principal ingredient. The solder is melted by the flame of a lamp, directed by a blow-pipe; and this operation cannot be performed with due accuracy, but in a close room. The greatest part of the arsenic is evaporated by the blast and flames, and some part also of the rest of the solder. The workmen must constantly breath these vapors, because there is little or no current of air to carry them into the chimney. Yet the men appear to enjoy as good health, and to live as long as other artists who pursue their business in close rooms, and use lamps. Amongst other examples of the truth of this observation, I saw one lately at the manufactory at Soho, near Birmingham: a man, aged upwards of fifty years, who has soldered silver filigree more than five and thirty years, and has regularly passed from eight to twelve hours daily in his occupation, and is at present fat, strong, active, chearful, and of a complexion by no means sickly. Neither he, nor his brother artists, use any means to counteract the effects of their trade. Dr. Percival’s Observations and Experiments on the Poison of Lead, p. 75, 76, and 77, London, 1774.

[39] The word reguline signifies royal, and has been applied by chymists to the harder or more fixed parts of minerals or metals. Hoffman uses reguline and arsenical indifferently when applied to antimony; and Carthusier asserts that the intimate union of the reguline part with the arsenical principle of antimony, is the cause of its being caustic, drastic, emetic, and virulent.

La parte reguline est etroitement unie au principe arsenical, qu’elle est par elle-meme caustique drastique, emetique, et virulente. Matiere Medicalle, tom. ii. sect. xv. chap. v. De l’antimoine crud. A Paris, 1765.

[40] Observationes Physico-Chymicæ, p. 251 & 252.

[41] Newman, p. 146.

[42] Opuscula Chymico-Physico-Medica, p. 434-441.

[43] In a treatise on the medical virtues of poisons, published in 1702.

[44] In an inaugural speech printed in 1700. This and the last quoted author I have not seen.

[45] Observations, on fevers, p. 42, and 204, published at Hanover in 1745.

[46] Cours de Chemie, p. 374.

[47] This matter is explained in a letter from Doctor De Haen, of Vienna, to a physician in England. I have, _says this celebrated physician_, made many experiments with hemlock, in consequence of an order from high authority: the result was, that not one of one hundred and twenty patients was cured or relieved by it; many grew worse, and seven unhappy women, with cancers in their breasts, perished in my hands, some of whom might have been saved by the knife. How did I intreat those to whom it belonged to use more precaution, or at least to suspend publishing in praise of poisons, till repeated trials had been made by several hands, lest the public faith should be abused, and the author rendered ridiculous in the face of the universe. But my remonstrances were fruitless, and, to my great concern, my best friend abruptly fell out with me, and I have incurred the disgrace of the best of sovereigns.

Since I have spoke my sentiments freely, I am looked upon as the chief of heretics, as an enemy of the public and of the author’s reputation; and for this reason I have been unhappily disgraced, and defamatory libels, of the most virulent kind, have been printed against me. I expect yet more terrible storms; however, I adore that Providence which directs all for his glory and my good, from whom I should deserve a disgrace infinitely more fearful than that which I now suffer, if for the sake of transitory glory, perishable treasures, or tranquillity of life, that may be taken from me in this world, I _should become a confederate with those who have thus infamously abused the publick confidence, to the disgrace of physick_. See Medical Museum, vol. III. London, 1764.

[48] Cronstedt, Hoffman, Stahl, &c. &c.

[49] See Hoffman’s Physico-Chymical Observations. Of the wonderful, virulent and medical powers of antimony, and by what means the one may easily be changed into the other.

[50] Newman, p. 133. New Dispensatory, p. 343. Geoffroy Tractatus de Materia Medica, tom. I. p. 234-239.

[51] See a narrative of the proceedings of the committee appointed by the College of Physicians to review their Pharmacopœia. p. 64.

[52] New Dispensatory, page 347.

[53] See Morton’s Treatise of Acute Diseases, printed at Geneva, 1727.

[54] See Baron Van Swieten’s Commentaries on Boerhaave’s Aphorisms, Vol. II. p. 797.

[55] See the narrative of the proceedings of the committee appointed by the College of Physicians to review their Pharmacopœia.

[56] Medical Museum, Vol. III. p. 530. London, 1764.

[57] Sydenhami Opera, p. 67. Lipsiæ, 1695.

[58] Observations made at Plymouth, on the weather and prevailing diseases from the year one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight, to one thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven, p. 140, &c.

[59] Newman, page 137.

[60] Newman’s Chymistry, p. 137.

[61] Geoffroy’s Treatise on the Materia Medica, tom. i. p. 225, and Glauber’s Apology against the lying calumnies of Christopher Farnner.

[62] Histoire de l’Academie Royalle des Sciences, pour l’anne 1720, and Lemery, Traîte de l’Antimoine.

[63] See the apology of John Rudolph Glauber, against the lying calumnies of Cristopher Farnner.

[64] Geoffroy’s Treatise of the Materia Medica, tom. i p. 225.

[65] Observationes de Aere et Morbis Epidemicis ab anno 1728, ad finem anni 1737, Plymuthi factæ, p. 140, 141, & 142. London. 1752.

[66] Medical and Chymical Observations on Antimony, p. 6 and 75. London. 1756.

[67] New Dispensatory, p. 351.

[68] Observations on the prevailing Diseases of Great Britain, part i. chap. iv. case 2d, p. 34.

[69] Ibid. part 2d, chap. x. p. 305.

[70] Observations on the Diseases of Great Britain, part i. chap. iii. case x, p. 106.

[71] See p. 49-66.

[72] Dissertation on Fevers, p. 6. London, 1770.

[73] See p. 57 and 58.

[74] See p. 24, 45 and 46.

[75] Introduction to the Dissertation on Fevers, p. 10.

[76] Introduction to the Dissertation on fevers, p. 11.

[77] Dissertation, p. 85.

[78] Dissertation on Fevers, p. 91. Ibid. p. 7.

[79] See p. 62 and 63.

[80] Addenda to the Dissertation.

[81] Introduction to the Dissertation, page 4.

[82] Introduction to the Dissertation, page 4.

[83] See page 72.

[84] Introduction to the Dissertation on Fevers, pages 1st, 2d, and 10th.

[85] Introduction to the Dissertation on Fevers, pages 9, 10.

[86] Introduction to the Dissertation on Fevers, page 10.

[87] See page 18-22.

[88] Ibid.

[89] Ibid. and page 79, 80, 86, and 87.

[90] Page 75-78.

[91] See page 72, and 73.

[92] Dissertation on Fevers, p. 84.

[93] Ibid. p. 81.

[94] Ibid. p. 91.

[95] Dissertation on Fevers, p. 76.

[96] Dissertation on Fevers, p. 70.

[97] Introduction to the Dissertation on Fevers, p. 1.

[98] Dissertation on Fevers, p. 90.

[99] Dissertation on Fevers, p. 72.

[100] Dissertation, p. 72.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Medical Society of London, have resolved to give an honorary Gold Medal to the Author of the best Dissertation on fevers.

Gentlemen who become candidates are desired to attend to the following regulations.

Dissertations on this subject are to be delivered to the Secretary in Crane Court, on or before the third Tuesday of April, 1775, written in a fair hand, and in the English or Latin language, and along with each a packet (sealed up) containing the name of the Author, and his place of residence, some motto or device being written on the outside of the packet, and at the beginning or end of the Dissertation.

It is resolved that the medal shall be publickly adjudged on the fifth day of June, 1775, after which all the papers, excepting that which obtains the honorary reward, shall be returned with the packets unopened, so that all the names excepting that of the successful candidate shall be concealed.

_N. B._ No Member of the Society will be admitted a Candidate for the Medal.

* * * * *

The Medical Society, being instituted for the improvement of medicine in all its branches, will be obliged to all who shall contribute toward the execution of their extensive design.

Papers intended for them may be directed to their Secretary in Crane Court, Fleet Street, or to any of the Members.

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BOOKS printed for J. JOHNSON, No. 72, St. Paul’s Church-yard; and D. WILSON, and G. NICOL, opposite to York Buildings, in the Strand.

I. Observations on the prevailing Diseases in Great Britain. Together with a Review of the History of those of former Periods, and in other Countries. By John Millar, M. D. Price 12s. in Boards.

II. A Discourse on the best Means of promoting Medical Enquiries, delivered before the Medical Society at their annual Meeting, on Tuesday the 18th Jan. 1774. and published at their Request. By James Sims, M. D.