The roots of āyurveda: selections from Sanskrit medical writings

beginning of a spectacular career for antimony in chemistry and medicine" (p. 14). The internal use of antimony and its compounds was most widespread during the seventeenth century: despite periodic warnings about its poisonous nature, its apparent ability to expel undesirable humours from the body by promoting sweating, vomiting and purging-ensured its acceptance in medical practice, particularly as an alternative to bloodletting. Medical use declined during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and antimony is now found mainly in industry. This volume is organized chronologically, and brings the medical history of antimony up-to-date by noting its use in homoeopathy, its importance to the followers of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical medicine, and the controversy that arose in the 1990s when it was suspected as a possible cause of cot deaths. The only currently accepted role for antimony in medicine is as a treatment for some tropical diseases. The book, which is richly illustrated, concludes with a useful list of antimony preparations used in medicine from the early modern period to the nineteenth century, and an appendix lists nearly a hundred antimony ores. The author is a physician and expert on occupational health who has long been involved with the antimony processing industry, where his interest in the history of antimony in medicine began. Many aspects of this history are considered, most rather briefly (references to it in drama and literature; use in veterinary medicine; the persistent religious element in its medicinal use), and some in more depth (antimony cups; the importance of antimony in alchemy). However, this book is an expanded version of a lecture given in 1983, and the bibliography tends to reflect that fact: there is an admirable focus on primary sources, but there are very few references drawn from recent scholarship in the history of medicine and science. This slim volume serves as a good introduction to its subject matter; it also points to historical aspects of the use of antimony in medicine that merit closer study.