Antimony ( glass of ). Reduce antimony to a powder; put it in an unglazed, earthen plate over a moderate fire, but capable of making the antimony smoke without fusing it. If your fire is strong and if you don’t take care to stir the powder constantly from one side to the other, a part of it will soften, pile up, and turn lumpy: if you catch sight of the material thus becoming lumpy, remove it from the fire; put the lumps in a mortar and reduce it to a powder; then put the powder back over the fire, finishing it with more precaution. The calcination will be done when the powder doesn’t smoke anymore, doesn’t give off any odor, and is whitish in color: then, throw it in a crucible among burning coals; cover the crucible; make a violent fire for around a half hour, then blow on it in order for the material to enter more quickly into a perfect fusion. To be sure of the fusion, plunge a stick of iron into it; if you don’t encounter any resistance near the bottom of the crucible, and upon removing the rod, you see that the substance runs all the way down it, and when it is cooled it is transparent, immediately remove the crucible from the fire; pour the melted material on a slab of warm marble or into a flat copper bowl; leave it to cool down and then you will have what is called glass of antimony .

The glass is brittle, without flavor, without odor, transparent, of a yellow color tending toward red, that is to say, of a red-orange color [ couleur hyacinthe ].

The iron restores the alloy of the calcinated antimony . If one stirs the lime of the molten antimony for a long time with an iron rod, one will find small globules of alloy.

The calcinated antimony pierces the bottom of crucibles; a crucible, therefore, cannot be used many times to make glass of antimony .

One can also make glass of antimony with the alloy by calcifying it in the same manner. Mr. Stahl even says that the one made with the alloy is purer than that of unprocessed antimony .

If one wants the glass of antimony to be transparent, as soon as it is calcified, put it in a crucible to melt; it is necessary to also choose a serene time, or when one melts it, add a little bit of sulfur or saltpeter.

When the glass is not clear, there are those who grind it, calcify it, and remake it. Others make dye from it by means of verdigris and after having dried it, remake it.

The whiter the glass of antimony is, the less emetic it is. Emetic and purgative pills and lozenges are made out of this glass .

The mochlic, or remedy against lead poisoning, is made from a mixture of glass of antimony and powdered sugar, from which a paste is made by wetting the mixture. See Remedy of the Charity Hospital. [1]

G lass of antimony is more or less emetic to the extent that it is more or less crushed up. It is given in doses ranging from one grain to five. See Medicinal chemistry.

1. Although no article with this title exists, there is another article that cross-references it: Mochlique. But this article does not shed much more light. It reads, in its entirety: “Mochlich of the Charity hospital of Paris . See Remedies of the Charity hospital .”