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Antimony

in chemistry, a triad metallic element, but in some less staple compounds it appears to be pentad. Symbol, Sb.; atomic weight, 122; sp. gr., 6.8; melting point, 450°. It can be distilled, but takes fire when strongly heated in the air, forming Sb2O3. Antimony is a bright bluish-white, brittle, easily pulverized metal, which occurs in Sb2S3, and as cervanite, Sb2O4; also as valentinite ANTINOMIANISM and senarmonite, Sb2O3. The metal is obtained by heating the sulphide with half its weight of metallic iron, or with potassium carbonate. It is oxidized by nitric acid, forming Sb2O5. Type metal is an alloy of lead with 20 per cent. of antimony. Finely powdered antimony takes fire when thrown into chlorine gas. Salts of antimony are used in medicine, in large doses they are poisonous. Antimony is detected by the properties of its sulphide, chloride, and of SbHs. It is precipitated by metallic zinc and iron from its solutions as a black powder.

In mineralogy, antimony occurs native, occasionally alloyed with a minute portion of silver, iron, or arsenic. It is very brittle. It occurs in Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Borneo, Chile, Mexico, Canada, and New Brunswick.

In pharmacy, black antimony consists of native sulphide of antimony fused and afterward powdered. It is not itself used as a drug, but is employed in preparing tartar emetic, sulphurated antimony, and terchloride of antimony. It is given to horses as an alterative powder; two parts of sulphur, one of saltpeter, and one of black antimony. It is used in the preparation of Bengal signal lights; six parts of saltpeter, two of sulphur, and one of black antimony. Chloride of antimony (SbCl3) is a solution used as a caustic and escharotic; it is never given internally. Sulphurated antimony consists of a sulphide of antimony with a small admixture of oxide of antimony.

It enters into the composition of compound calomel pills. ANTINOMIANISM (Greek, anti, "against," and nomos, law"), the doctrine or opinion that Christians are freed from obligation to keep the law of God.

It is generally regarded, by advocates of the doctrine of justification by faith, as a monstrous abuse and perversion of that doctrine, upon which it usually professes to be based. The term was first used at the time of the Reformation, when it was applied by Luther to the opinions advocated by Johann Agricola. Agricola had adopted the principles of the Reformation; but in 1527 he found fault with Melanchthon for recommending the use of the law, and particularly of the ten commandments, in order to produce conviction and repentance, which he deemed inconsistent with the Gospel. Ten years after, he maintained in a disputation at Wittenberg that, as men are justified simply by the Gospel, the law is in no way necessary for justification or for sanctification. The Antinomian controversy of this time, in which Luther took a very active part, terminated in 1540, ANTINOMY in a retractation by Agricola; but views more extreme than his were afterward advocated by some of the English sectaries of the period of the Commonwealth; and without being formally professed by a distinct sect, antinomianism has been from time to time reproduced with various modifications. It ought, however, to be borne in mind that the term has no reference to the conduct, but only to the opinions, of men; so that men who practically disregard and violate the known law of God are not, therefore, antinomians; and it is certain enough that men really holding opinions more or less antinomian have in many cases been men of moral life. Antinomianism usually originates in mistaken notions of Christian liberty, or in confusion of views as to the relation between the moral law and the Jewish law of ceremonial ordinances.