The morning after: have some antimony with that wine?
One cure for a night of excess during the Regency was an emetic cup.
Early in the evening wine was poured into a cup made of antimony. The acids in the wine leeched antimony from the sides of the cup. Later that night, or upon rising the next morning, the wine would be drunk and the antimony in the wine induced vomiting.
Not very glamorous, no. I don’t think I’ve ever read about one in a Regency, but…hey, whatever works. There’s a marvelous book, The Elements of Murder by John Emsley,[1] which talks about emetic cups as well as other toxic medical treatments, many of which were still being used during the Regency. (Not to mention fascinating case studies of poisoners.)
The cup pictured is believed to have belonged to Captain James Cook.
Footnotes (↵ returns to text)
- I love this book. I’m a chemistry geek and I’ve reread it several times.↵
4 Responses to “The morning after: have some antimony with that wine?”
Arsenic and lead in cosmetics. A very dangerous time. Personally, I would prefer a less toxic approach to clearing my system.
What is fascinating, particularly about lead, is that it was already well known to be toxic (in her diaries, Fanny Burney mentions sickly ladies using lead-based powder — which definitely would make a woman appear pale!). And arsenic in the newly mass-produced wallpapers, too. When he was working on oxygen research (or for him, dephlogisticated air research), Joseph Priestly measured air quality in crowded assembly rooms and it was not a pretty picture!
Only slightly related: The Blarney Castle, house, and grounds (much more than a stupid stone) has a poison garden- everything in it was (or still is) used for making poison! This cup just reminded me of it.
That’s fascinating (I didn’t know about the garden)!