In his bookMedical Cautions Chiefly for the Consideration of Invalids(1787) James AdairM.D. writes of the powders in the chapter entitled On Empiricism of Quackery:

JAMES'S Powder ,though confessedly beneficial in certain stages of inflammatory diseases,has,not unfrequently, vomited, purged or sweated to death persons labouring under low malignant and putrid fevers,who might have been saved by a liberal use of bark, snake-root and wine...the celebrated Dr Goldsmith was destroyed by an injudicious use of James's Powder ;and notwithstanding James's assertation, that it has been found beneficial in the malignant yellow fevers of hot climates ,the reverse isundoubtedly true

page 95.