James’s powder
Dr. James’s fever powder
- Known today as
- A patent powder of antimony and calcined bone, secret in its making.
- Kind
- Compound
- Constituents
- oxide of antimony, calcium phosphate
- Poisoning
- Mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
Revised October 3, 2026: Checked against its sources, each read in full, in part, or in its abstract. Version 1, first published September 30, 2026.
Caution. Contained antimony.
James’s powder: what was it used for?
A fever medicine that brought on sweating; Dr. Robert James patented it in 1746 and sold it, as did F. Newbery.
James’s powder: what does modern science say?
By 1892 it had “almost ceased to be used by physicians.”
James’s powder: is it poisonous?
Yes, in some form or dose. Contained antimony. Its poisoning is mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony: Minutes to hours for a large dose; months or years for the slow poisoning of the trades. Historical description, not medical advice; in a poisoning, call a poison centre.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- oxide of antimony
- calcium phosphate ChEMBLfrom the burnt hartshorn
- Mechanism
- The powder made patients sweat, and often vomit and purge, as James’s own case reports show; Davy, in 1829, believed its virtues “greatly exaggerated.”
- Toxic dose
- Variable in make: it was said that it could not be made twice to the same shade of yellow or whiteness. Davy found it about half phosphate of lime and half oxide of antimony, almost all of it insoluble.
- Syndrome
- Mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
- Standing
- Gone: a patent medicine that had almost ceased to be used by 1892.
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
James’s powder: what lore surrounds it?
Oliver Goldsmith took it against his apothecary’s advice in the fever of which he died in 1774, and the apothecary, Hawes, attributed bad results to the dose; it was prescribed for George III early in his attack of mania in 1788.
In Their Own Words
Buchan says that antimonial vomits promote the excretions as well as emptying the stomach, and so have in fevers nearly the same effects as Dr James's Powder.
“Antimonial vomits serve not only to evacuate the contents of the stomach, but likewise to promote the different excretions. Hence they are found in fevers to have nearly the same effects as Dr. James’s Powder.”
William Buchan, M.D., Domestic Medicine: or, a Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases by Regimen and Simple Medicines. With an Appendix, containing a Dispensatory for the Use of Private Practitioners, Dispensatory, Juleps: 'Vomiting Julep'. London: printed for A. Strahan, T. Cadell, 1791 (Project Gutenberg eBook #74359). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Sources
- Forster, J. (1848). The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith. Read in part · the text read
- Moore, N. (1892). James, Robert. Dictionary of National Biography 29. Read in full · the text read
- Anon. (1792). Experiments and observations to investigate the composition of James’s Powder, by George Pearson [an account of his paper in the Philosophical Transactions, 1791]. Medical Facts and Observations 3: 128–152. Read in full · the text read
- Davy, J. (1829). Observations on James’s Powder, and the antimonial powder of the London Pharmacopœia. Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh 3: 481–488. Read in full · the text read
- James, R. (1748). A Dissertation on Fevers and Inflammatory Distempers. London: J. Newbery. Read in part · the text read
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026, and October 3, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Every source read, in full, in part, or in its abstract, and every sentence checked against what was read (October 3, 2026)
- Sources
- 5 cited: 3 read in full, 2 read in part.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 30, 2026 · last revised October 3, 2026
- Chicago
“James’s powder.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 3, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/jamess-powder.
- MLA
“James’s powder.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 3 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/jamess-powder. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
James’s powder. (2026, October 3). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/jamess-powder
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See Also
Poisoned alike: mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
Litharge · Iron and steel · Orpiment and realgar · Cinnabar · Passarino’s white powder · Aurum potabile · Quicksilver · Armenian stone, pills of · the syndrome, with all of them →
Sharing calcium phosphate
Drawing on the same sources: Moore
Nearby in the alphabet
Jelly ear (rubbery, ear-shaped fungus, chiefly on elder) · Jalap · Jet, oil of (a dense variety of lignite) · Jack-o’-lantern · Jewelweed · Iva (Ajuga iva) · Juneberry · Isinglass
Historical description, not medical advice.