[Reprinted from THE MEDICAL NEWS, November n, 1893.] 
TOXIC SYMPTOMS FROM SEIDLITZ POWDERS. 
By J. S. TRIPLETT, M.D., 
OF HARRISONVILLE, MO. 
Not long ago I called upon a physician who was 
convalescing from an attack of malaria, and while in 
conversation he related an attack of severe vomiting and 
retching and depressing after-effects following the in- 
gestion of a Seidlitz powder. The depression was so 
marked that he feared a fatal termination, and medical 
aid was summoned. Emesis was provoked by titillating 
the fauces with the finger, when severe vomiting and 
retching ensued for some time, after which the functions 
gradually but slowly became normal. The powders were 
not thought of as having been the cause of the trouble, 
although the man said that they tasted differently from 
any he had previously taken. 
In the same house was a young man, a relative of the 
physician, who was also sick and was ordered a Seidlitz 
powder, but took only half of the powder in solution. In 
ten minutes violent vomiting and retching set in, with 
cramps in the stomach and a burning sensation in the 
esophagus, together with a feeling of general depression. 
This man was able to go about his business in a few 
days. 
Two or three days later, at night, I was called to see 
A. D. R., about thirty years old. I responded at once, 
and found the patient in bed, vomiting and retching at in- 
tervals of eight or ten minutes, with moist skin, slow and 
weakened cardiac action, and as he expressed it, " so sick 2 
he did not know what to do." Nausea was very marked. 
The femoral adductors were cramped, and the man spoke 
of a repeated desire to defecate. The voice was somewhat 
subdued. The result of my examination did not account 
for his condition, and I set about getting more facts. On 
inquiry, I learned that the man had been feeling badly 
all of the afternoon, and on returning from his work got 
a Seidlitz powder, ate supper, and then, at about 8 p.m., 
took the powder, with the results related. 
Remembering the other two cases, my diagnosis was 
now clear. The next morning I went to the drug-store 
from which the powder was obtained, and, on inquiry, 
found that the powders taken by the physician and the 
young man were also purchased at this store. I related 
the cases to the druggist ; he could not account for the 
symptoms, as he said that he had compounded the pow- 
ders according to the U. S. P. 
The blue paper was obtained from a printing-office, 
and he thought that possibly the untoward effects were 
due to arsenic in the paper. I obtained one of the pow- 
ders for qualitative analysis, and on passing H2S gas, 
generated in Marsh's apparatus, through the contents of 
the blue paper, dissolved in four ounces of pure water, a 
heavy, orange-colored precipitate of Sb2S3 (antimonious 
sulphid) was thrown down. The presence of so much 
antimony explained the alarming symptoms in the three 
persons who took the powders. 
In all probability the mistake was made in com- 
pounding the powders, antimoni-potassic tartrate being 
used instead of potassium bitartrate.