Though some of the cases which he relates happened in the year one thousand seven hundred and forty-one, yet the medicine was not much known till one thousand seven hundred and fifty, the æra from which its auspicious influence on the bills of mortality is dated. But antimonial medicines were more in fashion before the powder came into general use, than at any future time. Dr. Huxham having, in the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven, recommended, in the highest strain of panegyric, the vinum benedictum, it was universally adopted, though expressly condemned by the Inventor of the fever-powder. _Great numbers_, says he, _of those whose employment it is to attend the sick, cunningly exhibited to their patients something, which they asserted was like the fever-powder, and would do as well. I leave it to the relations of those who took the something, to judge the consequence, for I suppose few or none of them who were thus treated survive_[82].
The something, it is well known, was essence of antimony or tartar emetic, medicines under the direction of prudent practitioners, similar in their operation and in their effects, not only to each other, but also to the fever-powder; and though the Inventor has perhaps too much indulged his indignation against his competitors in the antimonial trade, yet his general position, concerning the fatal consequences of the universal administration of antimonial medicines, is well supported by the evidence to which he has appealed, the bills of mortality having greatly increased during the prevalence of that practice.
The numbers of those who died of fevers from the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight, to one thousand seven hundred and fifty, including a series of thirteen years, is fifty-five thousand four hundred and ninety, and those in a like series of years, immediately succeeding, is thirty-six thousand three hundred and seventy-two; consequently nineteen thousand one hundred and eighteen fewer have died in the latter than in the former period, and this has, with some appearance of justice, been urged as a proof of the efficacy of the fever-powder.
But if this decrease in the funerals were actually owing to that medicine, it should have been still more observable in the last ten years, when the powder has been more universally used. But, in that period, thirty-five thousand four hundred and ninety-four have died, and consequently, the number of deaths, by fevers, have increased eight thousand seven hundred and eighty; and if inflammation, rash, and sore-throat, which were included in the former calculations, are added, the number will amount, nearly, to ten thousand, and therefore, on an average, _one thousand, or near one-third_ more have died, of fevers, _every year_, in the last ten years, while the medicine has been universally used, than in the thirteen immediately preceding. The proof, therefore, from the bills of mortality is fatal to the fame of the fever-powder, and the decrease in the funerals during the thirteen years to which the Inventor appeals for the success of his antimonial powder, must be attributed to the desertion of the antimonial practice, and not to its prevalence.