The Element
Summer 2022
Antimony If you have never heard of antimony, it’s probably because it’s not one of elements you come across often at school, or even hear about much in the outside world. Its history, however, shows that its discovery in ancient times had real significance, but has seemed to be a mysterious metal to the mainstream world.
12th century illustration of a Byzantine ship using Greek fire in around the year 821 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greekfire-madridskylitzes1.jpg)
The name ‘antimony’ is derived from the Greek words ‘anti’ and ‘monos’, together meaning ‘not alone’. This references the fact that antimony is almost always found in nature in compounds, and almost never as the element itself.
In Ancient Rome, however, antimony (in Latin, ‘stibium’, which is the reason for the chemical symbol Sb) was used medicinally for dermatological illnesses and burns, clearly very different from its use in Ancient Greece. In the world of medicine, antimony’s use in history has extended much further than dermatology, a fact particularly interesting considering that the element is in fact toxic. The symptoms of antimony poisoning are similar (but generally milder) than the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. However, some of its historical medicinal applications found ways to get around this significant limitation, and in some cases even use its toxicity for the benefit of medicinal technique. Antimony was used widely as an emetic (a substance which induces nausea) in the 18th century. A piece of antimony would typically be left in a goblet of wine for a period of a few hours, allowing the wine to absorb some of the antimony which could then be used as an emetic, while at the same time not absorbing so much antimony that the patient would be poisoned. Although this and similar techniques were commonly used at the time with extreme caution, there were cases reported of people being poisoned by the medicine that was meant to help them, one famous case of this being the death of the composer Mozart. Although the true cause of Mozart’s death is not known and has several theories surrounding it, one theory involves antimony poisoning. Doctors had prescribed
Antimony (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antimony-4.jpg)
Its uses have been recorded as early as in Ancient Greece, where it is thought to have been a component of Greek fire, an incendiary weapon which was used in military battles. The specific antimony component in ‘Greek fire’ was antimony sulphide, which reacts vigorously with oxygen, fitting in with the description of Greek fire as being very dangerous and destructive.
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