A LIVE TOAD FOUND IN THE STOMACH OF A SOW. 195 
and thus excited undue action in the kidneys; which action con- 
tinued unrestrained, until the treatment adopted diverted the fluids 
from their abnormal to a healthy course, and recovery necessarily 
immediately followed*. 
A LIVE TOAD FOUND IN THE STOMACH OF A SOW. 
Letter from Mr . CHILD, Veterinary Surgeon, Swaffham. 
Messrs. Editors, 
SHOULD you consider this narrative worthy a nook in your 
Veterinarian, you may insert it. Its truth I can vouch for. It 
has long been denied that any living animal can exist in the stomach 
of another t ; but this will seem to set it on one side. A butcher, 
living a distance of four miles from this place, had a sow that 
pigged thirteen young ones on February 25th. The mother and 
her progeny appeared to be enjoying perfect health until Satur- 
day the 7th instant. In the forenoon the owner attended this 
market. When he arrived home in the afternoon, he observed the 
sow to be unwell, refusing her victuals, and constantly vomiting. 
He remained with her until Sunday morning, at which time she 
died, he fancying some one must have given her poison. As such 
he proceeded to a post-mortem examination, and after cutting 
through the abdominal muscles, and taking out the stomach and 
intestines, he perceived a small quantity of faeces in the cavity of 
the abdomen ; and upon opening the stomach he saw a large toad 
sitting upright, and perfectly alive, close to the pyloric orifice, at 
which situation was the rupture, no doubt wherefrom the food had 
made its escape, and all round it appeared as if the toad had 
been biting it. What could be the cause of death — the rupture in 
the stomach, or the stranger within 1 
* A case closely similar to this is to be found in Mr. Percivall’s Hippo- 
pathology, vol. i, p. 22 . — Edit. 
f Hots and worms excepted. — E dit. 
