118 RANA ESCULENTA. 



en facon de poulletz fricassez.' Thirty years afterwards, Pallissy 

 in his treatise ' Des Pierres,' thus expresses himself : ' Et de mon 

 temps j'ai veu qu'il se fust trouve bien peu d'hommes qui eussents 

 voulu manger ni tortues ni grenouilles.' 



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

 and intestines excepted. In France, epicures confine themselves 

 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 different diseases. 

 Broths are made of it, which are considered restorative, diluent, 

 analeptic, and anti- scorbutic, and are prescribed in various affec- 

 tions 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 practices on this subject. Timotheus, for instance, would 

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

 attract externally the superabundant serosity in the abdomen. 

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

 a particular part of the human body, and we presume that its curative 

 efficacy is fully equal to that of the cataplasm 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 vov;, 

 some doctors have recommended in epilepsy, the liver of a frog, 

 calcined in an oven on a cabbage-leaf, between two plates, and 

 swallowed in peony-water."* The spawn of frogs was formerly used 

 in external inflammations, as soothing and emollient, and in the 

 old pharmacopoeias, oil of frogs is mentioned, but both these 

 remedies are now deservedly neglected. 



* Animal Kingdom, by Ed. Griffiths, F.L. S. vol. ii. p. 440. 



