Introduction - Uppsala Monitoring Centre

causing cold sweats, insensibility, tremor and convulsions, whilst four grains
given to a 50-60 year old female for ‘flu killed her after cold sweats violent
vomiting and purging, faintings and a scarcely palpable pulse (Blackburne,
1788).
‘The internal administration of…antimony is sometimes followed, especially in
children, by a condition resembling collapse, owing to the very pronounced
property of antimony in causing a lowering of the frequency and force of the
heart beat.’ (Lewin, 1883). It also caused nausea and vomiting (N & V),
diarrhoea, hepatitis, renal failure, red cell toxicity, cardiovascular collapse and
death (Duffin & René, 1991). ‘Antimony given in large doses: enormous
evacuations both up and down with atrocious pain, convulsions, dyspnoea,
haemorrhage, swelling of the lower abdomen, inflammation, erosion and
gangrene of the stomach and the intestines and which finishes by death
…Devouring heat and wrenching in the region of the epigastrium, switching
from syncope to convulsive agitation followed closely by violent vomiting of
frothy yellow matter and sometimes mixed with streaks of blood… frequent
fainting fits and painful cramps in the legs.’ (Magendie, 1813).
SED 1952 N & V, diarrhoea, cyanosis, anaphylactic shock, asthma, cough,
dizziness, urticaria, oedema of the glottis, muscle & joint pains, headache,
bradycardia, pyrexia, hepatitis, albuminuria, herpes zoster, rash, glandular
swellings, necrosis of gingival mucosa and pulmonary infiltrations.
SED 1957 Stilbophen caused haemolytic anaemia leading to shock.
Withdrawn: on 3rd August 1566 the Paris Faculty of Medicine forbade its use
on the grounds that it was a dangerous poison and had caused several
deaths and that it should not be taken internally. This was a result of a
quarrel between the more modern medical faculty of Montpellier, which
favoured iatrochemistry and that of Paris, which was very conservative and
favoured the old fashioned Galenical outlook. It was also banned at
Heidelberg University from 1558 until 1655, In Augsberg in 1567, Vienna
from 1569 to 1667 and in parts of Italy. In 1611 the Royal College of
Physicians (London) issued a certificate condemning as dangerous to life a
medicine that contained antimony or one of its ingredients.
The French ban was rescinded in 1666 when the Paris faculty voted 92 to 102
in favour of its restoration, which was probably related to the fact that Louis
XIV was cured of typhoid fever by antimony (tartar emetic) in 1657. In a series
of decrees and court cases this powerful body tried to forbid any use of
chemistry in medicine (MacCallum, 1999; Pilpoul, 1928)). Pentavalent sodium
stibogluconate (pentostam) is still used in leishmaniasis and trivalent antimony
potassium tartrate (tartar emetic) in schistosomiasis.
Availability: the trivalent and/or pentavalent forms are available in Brazil,
France, Spain, Venezuela, Austria, Germany, Thailand and Italy (Martindale).