ORDER BATRACHIA. 441 



In Germany, all parts of these animals are eaten, the skin 

 and intestines excepted. In France, epicures confine them- 

 selves to the hinder quarters, which are dressed with wine, like 

 fish, or with white sauce. Sometimes they are fried, or even 

 spitted. 



Cooks are not the only persons who have studied the art of 

 appropriating frogs to the benefit of man. For a considerable 

 period, the continental physicians have employed the flesh of 

 these reptiles, variously prepared, in the treatment of dif- 

 ferent diseases. Broths are made of it, which are considered 

 restorative, diluent, analeptic, and anti-scorbutic, and are pre- 

 scribed in affections of the chest, pulmonary consumption, 

 cutaneous disorders, and many other maladies. 



Even supposing the utility of such preparations in the 

 cases we have mentioned, it is certain that a great number of 

 physicians have adopted the most absurd notions and prac- 

 tices on this subject. Timotheus, for instance, would apply 

 frogs cut in two on the kidneys of hydropic patients, to at- 

 tract externally the superabundant serosity in the abdomen. 

 We have heard of the application of a brick-bat, in certain 

 cases, to a peculiar part of the human body, and we presume 

 that its curative efficacy is fully equal to that of the cata- 

 plasm here recommended. 



According to Dioscorides, the flesh of the frog, cooked with 

 salt and oil, is an antidote for the poison of serpents ; and 

 Arnold informs us that the heart of this animal, taken every 

 morning in the form of a pill, cured a fistula in the epigastric 

 region, which had resisted many other remedies. 



With a like degree of vou^, some doctors have recom- 

 mended, in epilepsy, the liver of a frog calcined in an oven 

 on a cabbage-leaf between two plates, and swallowed in 

 peony-water. 



We may observe, notwithstanding these absurdities, that 



