# James’s powder

*Dr. James’s fever powder*

**Known today as.** A patent powder of [antimony](https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/antimony) and calcined bone, secret in its making.

Kind: Compound  
Poisoning: Mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/heavy-metal)  
Toxic: yes

> **Caution.** Contained antimony.

## 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.

## What does modern science say?

By 1892 it had “almost ceased to be used by physicians.”

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **oxide of antimony**: 
- **calcium phosphate**: from 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.”

**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.

**Standing.** Gone: a patent medicine that had almost ceased to be used by 1892.

## 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.

## Sources

- Forster, J. (1848). *The Life and Adventures of Oliver Goldsmith*.
- Moore, N. (1892). James, Robert. *Dictionary of National Biography* 29.
- 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.
- Davy, J. (1829). Observations on James’s Powder, and the antimonial powder of the London Pharmacop ia. *Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh* 3: 481–488.
- James, R. (1748). *A Dissertation on Fevers and Inflammatory Distempers*. London: J. Newbery.

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*James’s powder.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/jamess-powder

Historical description, not medical advice.