Pyrotechnic Compositions Containing Antimony

The use of antimony sulfide, Sb2S3, designated in the early writings simply as antimony, along with the saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal, which were the standard ingredients of all pyrotechnic compositions, appears to have been introduced in the early part of the seventeenth century. John Bate s Book of Fireworks, 1635, containing information derived from the noted Professors, as Mr. Malthus, Mr. Norton, and the French Authour, Des Recreations Mathematiques, 2 mentions no mixtures which contain antimony. Typical of his mixtures are the following. 

---