THE FROG KIND. 



70j> 



accounts that represent the toad as possessed 

 of poison to kill at a distance; of its ejecting 

 its venom, which burns wherever it touches; 

 of its infecting those vegetables near which 

 it resides; of its excessive fondness for sage, 

 which it renders poisonous by its approach; 

 these, and a hundred others ol the same kind, 

 probably took rise from an antipathy which 

 some have to all animals of the kind. It is 

 an harmless, defenceless creature, torpid and 

 unvenomous, and seeking the darkest retreats, 

 not from the malignity of its nature, but the 

 multitude of its enemies. 



Like all the frog kind, the toad is torpid in 

 winter. It chooses then for a retreat either 

 the hollow root of a tree, the cleft of a rock, 

 or sometimes the bottom of a pond, where it 

 is found in a state of seeming insensibility. 

 As it is very long-lived, it is very difficult to 

 be killed; its skin is tough, and cannot be 

 easily pierced ; and, though covered with 

 wounds, the animal continues to show signs 

 of life, and every part appears in motion. But 

 what shall we say to its living for centuries 

 lodged in the bosom of a rock, or cased with- 

 in the body of an oak tree, without the small- 

 est access on any side either for nourishment 

 or air, and yet taken out alive and perfect! 

 Stories of this kind it would be as rash to con- 

 tradict, as difficult to believe; we have the 

 highest authorities bearing witness to their 

 truth, and yet the whole analogy of nature 

 seems to arraign them of falsehood. Bacon 

 asserls, that toads are found in this manner; 

 Dr. Plot asserts the same: There is to this 

 day a marble chimney-piece at Chatsworth 

 with the print of a toad upon it, and a tradi- 

 tion of the manner in which it was found. In 

 the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, 

 there is an account of a toad found alive and 

 healthy in the heart of a very thick elm, 

 without the smallest entrance or egress." In 

 the year 1731, there was another found near 

 N intes in the heart of an old oak, without the 

 smallest issue to its cell ; and the discoverer 

 was of opinion, from the size of the tree, that 

 the animal could not have been confined there 

 less than eighty or a hundred years, without 

 sustenance and without air. To all these we 

 can only oppose the strangeness of the facts; 



# Vide the year 1719. 



the neccessity this animal appears under of 

 receiving air; and its dying like all other ani- 

 mals in the air-pump, when deprived of this 

 all-sustaining fluid. But whether these be 

 objections to weigh against such respectable 

 and disinterested authority, I will not pretend 

 to determine; certain it is, that if kept in a 

 damp place, the toad will live for several 

 months without any food whatsoever. 



To this extraordinary account, which is 

 doubtful, I will a<ld another not less so ; which 

 is, that of toads sucking cancerous breasts, 

 and thus extracting the venom, and perform- 

 ing a cure. The first account we have of 

 this, is in a letter to the Bishop of Carlisle 

 from Doctor Pitfield, who was the first person 

 of consequence that attended the experiment 

 His letter is as follows: 



"Your lordship must have taken notice of 

 a paragraph in the papers with regard to the 

 application of toads to a cancered breast. A 

 patient of mine has sent to the neighbourhood 

 of Hungerford, and brought down the very 

 woman on whom the cure was done. I have, 

 w ith all the attention I am capable of, attend- 

 ed the operation for eighteen or twenty days, 

 and am surprised at the phenomenon. I am 

 in no expectation of any great service from 

 the application; the age, constitution, and 

 thoroughly cancerous condition, of the person, 

 being unconquerable barriers to it. How an 

 ailment of that kind, absolutely local, in an 

 otherwise sound habit and of a likely age, 

 might be relieved, I cannot say. But as to 

 the operation, thus much I can assert, that 

 there is neither pain nor nauseousness in it. 

 The animal is put into a linen bag all but its 

 head, and that is held to the part. It has 

 generally instantly laid hold of the foulest 

 part of the sore, and sucked with greediness 

 until it dropped off dead. It has frequently 

 happened that the creature has swollen im- 

 mediately, and from its agonies appeared to 

 be in great pain. I have weighed them for 

 several days together, before and after the 

 application, and found their increaseof weight, 

 in the different degrees, from a drachm to 

 near an ounce. They frequently sweat ex- 

 ceedingly, and turn quite pale; sometimes 

 they disgorge, recover, and become lively 

 again : I think the whole scene is surprising, 

 and a very remarkable piece of natural his- 



