92 THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD 



Mizaldus for truth by one of the French King's physicians, 

 which affirmed that he did see the trial thereof." 



We have thus before us the actual things called toad- 

 stones, and believed by Shakespeare and his contemporaries 

 to be found in the head of the toad. How did it come 

 about that these pretty little button-like, drab-coloured 

 fossil teeth were given such an erroneous history? This 

 question was answered by the late Rev. C. W. King, Fellow 

 of Trinity College, Cambridge, in his book on ' Antique 

 Gems ' (London, I 860). He says, " I am not aware if any 

 substance of a stony nature is ever now discovered within 

 the head or body of the toad. Probably the whole story 

 originated in the name Batrachites (frog-stone or toad- 

 stone), given in Pliny to a gem brought from Coptos, and 

 so called from its resemblance to that animal in colour." 

 We have not, it must be noted, any specimens of the 

 toad-stone at the present day actually known to have been 

 brought from Coptos. It is quite possible that the fossil 

 fish-tooth was substituted ages ago for Pliny's Batrachites, 

 and was never found at Coptos at all ! Whether that is so 

 or not, the fact is that Pliny never said it came out of a 

 toad, but merely that it was of the colour of a toad. 



The Pliny referred to is Pliny the Elder, the celebrated 

 Roman naturalist who wrote a great treatise on natural 

 history, which we still possess, and died in A.D. 79 whilst 

 visiting the eruption of Vesuvius. He says nothing of 

 the Batrachites being found inside the toad, nor does he 

 mention its medicinal virtues. The name alone simply 

 the name " Batrachites," the Greek for toad-stone was 

 sufficient to lead the fertile imagination of the mediaeval 

 doctors to invent all the other particulars ! It is a case pre- 

 cisely similar to that of the old lady who was credited with 

 having vomited " three black crows." When the report was 

 traced step by step to its source it was found that her nurse 

 had stated that she vomited something as black as a crow ! 



