Passarino’s white powder

Statema, B. C. P.

Compound

Passarino’s white powder

Known today as: A very white powder prepared in Brescia “with great mastery” by Signor Giovanni Antonio Passarino, a man skilled in the spagyric (chemical) art (note XXXIX). Canale does not give its composition; it makes one vomit and purge, and he names it just after advising that well-prepared antimony is safer than hellebore, but what it was is not recorded.
Kind: Compound
Constituents: unknown, antimony oxide or mercurous chloride
Poisoning: Mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
In the Canale glossary: On the Manner of Discerning and Healing the Bewitched, Appendix A: Part Three, Chapter 5: Vomitory Medicines

Revised October 3, 2026: Checked against its sources, each read in full, in part, or in its abstract. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.

Passarino’s white powder: what did Canale use it for?

A safe and powerful vomit, by which difficult cases were healed (ch. 5).

Passarino’s white powder: what does modern science say?

Its nature is unknown. Antimony, which Canale recommends just before it, caused more debate than any other chemical medicine of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a reviewer of McCallum’s history notes.

Pharmacognosy & Toxicology

Constituents

unknownCanale does not give the recipe
antimony oxide or mercurous chloridea guess only: Canale recommends prepared antimony as a vomit just before naming the powder

Mechanism

A “safe and powerful vomit” by a named maker skilled in the spagyric art, the language of the chemical medicines then in dispute; Canale places it right after his advice that well-prepared antimony is a safer vomit than hellebore. Without the recipe the identification is a guess, not a fact.

Toxic dose

Canale gives his prepared antimony at four to eight grains, in powder or infusion; the dose of the powder itself is not legible in the read copy.

Syndrome

Mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony

Standing

Unidentified; it belongs to the century from about 1560 to 1660 that has been called the “Antimony War,” between Galenists and iatrochemists.

Canale, F. (1622). Discerning and Healing the Bewitched, ch. 5. Read in part · the text read

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.

Sources

Review of R. I. McCallum, Antimony in Medical History (Pentland Press, 1999). Bulletin of the History of Medicine (2000). doi:10.1353/bhm.2000.0064 Abstract read · 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

2 cited: 1 read in part, 1 abstract read. 1 with the abstract on file.

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 25, 2026 · last revised October 3, 2026

Chicago: “Passarino’s white 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/passarinos-white-powder.
MLA: “Passarino’s white powder.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 3 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/passarinos-white-powder. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
APA: Passarino’s white 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/passarinos-white-powder

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