A description of the nature of four-footed beasts with their figures en[graven in brass] / written in Latin by Dr. John Johnston ; translated into English by J.P.

POINT I. Of the Toad.

CAlled Bufo from blowing perhaps;* 1.1 and Rubeta from being among bushes, Phronon, and Phrunen, the poy∣son running to the head, and causing giddinesse, or from the shrub Phruganon. By Lucian, Phusalos from swelling, if but touched. It is thick skined,* 1.2 hardly to be pearced by the sharpest stake, pale, spotted, as if pimpled, the belly swoln and pufd, thick-headed, broad-backed, without hair. One sort lives on land, and in marishy puddles. The phansy shady,* 1.3 rotten holes. There are none in Ireland; bring any thither (they say) they dy, sprinkle but irish dust upon them.

They feed on earthy moysture, herbs, worms,* 1.4 bees. It is said they eat so much earth a day, as they can grasp with the forefoot. They lurk oft under sage; there are sad stories of divers dying with tasting sage leaves,* 1.5 whether they eat it, or no is not known.

They are bred out of egges, and rotten stuff;* 1.6 and out of buried ashes; and in Dariene, from the drops falling from slaves right hands, as they water the floor,* 1.7 and from a duck buried; and from menstrue, we read of womans void∣ing toads.

They hold enmity with salt, for being sprinkled therewith, they pine away to the bones, if we beleeve Albert. Strong sents, as of rew, &c. drives them away, as also of a blooming vine. They fight with Cats, and dy for it; Moles, and they devoure each other. A Spider strikes him dead at a blow.* 1.8 They love Sage, Weezels will slide into their mouths. Plantan is their antidote against Spiders.* 1.9 By day, and in winter they skulk, and ly in the paths by night, and rome about;* 1.10 they hate the Sun-beams. Hevygated they are; sometimes they leap.* 1.11 Strike them, they swell, and spurt poyson out behinde, and then certain stinking drops. They infect Sage, and make it as dead∣ly as wolfbane; they cry, or croak gru, gru. When they crawl about in the evening, it pre∣sages rain.

Their poyson is not much, nor strong;* 1.12 especially of those in colder regions, but in hotter, stronger. The very salt wherein a

toad dies, melted in water, so infects it, that wet a rag, or shirt with it, it brings an incu∣rable scurf. If you would take it off, either prick the skin, or whip it, or prick the outside, and cast it into water. One poysoned swells, looks wan, sighs, is shortbreathed, and taken with seed-flux; sometimes with the bloody∣flux, inflammation of throat, and giddinesse. There was one, who with the cane, that pearched a toad, so venome his hands, that he vomited up the meat he had handled, and never ceast spewing, till hee took his meat from others hands; they who scape death, most commonly shed all their teeth.

For cure,* 1.13 men use River-crabs, stamped and drunk; and toads-ashes, and right Harts-horn, breast-milke, fasting spittle, reed-rootes, the herb poterion, or phrynion, taken in wine, Malta earth, Emerald, triacle, and without oyl of Scorpion. Some cry up the toads-stone; adds Mithridate, and the quintessence of Treacle.

As harmfull as the toad is,* 1.14 and venemous, it helps against venome, and otherwayes use∣full.* 1.15 Some seeth it in a plain pot with Bears-grease for the joynt-gout. Boyled in oyle, men annoint with it, swellings with successe. Cut it up, and clap it to the reins, it provokes urine; which also cures the dropsy. Boyled, and made into a playster, helps the Squincy; the string also whereon it is hanged.

The inner-fat, (and stuffe one Laureola-root, and Hens-dung,* 1.16 salt, and oyl of Dialthaea) dropping from it, when roasted, is good oint∣ment for a fistula; also the powder thereof roasted to a cole. Dried in the shadow, and wrapt in a linnen, and held in the hand, it stanches blood; the ashes prevents the emrods overbleeding.

Nicolaus makes a playster thereof. Others hang it dried about the neck, for an amulate against the pest. Crollius sprinkles the dust of it on all venemous bites. Some against a Cancer, take a thick toad, weigh it, and take Crabs alive of the same weight, and dry them to dust over a soft fire in a plain pot, leaving a litle hole for vent. Helmond was taught by Butler of Yreland, out of a toads-carcasse, and earth, and those small creatures, that he uses to vomit out in three dayes, hanging by the fire into a waxen-platter,* 1.17 makes pellets with the gumme tragacanthus, and that dish, and hangs them at the left pap, to repell contagion, and draw out the venome; the older, and more used, the more powerfull; the toad taken in July, after-noon. He tooke some also at the waining of the Moon in July, whose eyes swarmed with white worms, with black heads; so at least, as if both eyes had been turned in∣to worms; they clinged thick together in either eye, their heads sticking out; and as any en∣deavoured to come forth, the toad with his paw hindered it. Hee vomited flies with shi∣ning wings, handsome, and greenish; and by and by, after died of vomiting. The feet of a living toad, when the Moon is in the last quarter, being cut off cures neck swellings, if they be hanged on of the toad-stone hereafter.

In the new world,* 1.18 in the Isle Peragua a Spanjard for hunger, ate boiled-toads, saith Pet. Martyr in his Decades 3. l. 10. And Le∣rius, that the Brasilians eat them roasted, and never unbowell them; they give a burnt-toad to their Falcons, to prevent the moth-eating of their feathers. There are that shut a toad in an earthen-pot, and hide it amidst their standing corn, to prevent blasting in tempests; to omit the foppery about the right side-bone; they are differenced from place, shape,* 1.19 and bulk. For place, some are found in and about sacred places, and things. In Sneberg, and Mansfield, bring them out, they swell, and dy.

At Tholouse was one with white spots,* 1.20 found in a red sand-stone. A Mason of Ant∣werp found one in marble. Agricola saith, they are in those they make mill-stones, and afore they shape them, they had need looke well, if they lurk not therein. About the shape, and bulke, writers mention many things;* 1.21 as of a bunchbacked toad; see his figure here∣after, &c.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Ambr. l. 1. c. 2. Name. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.2

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Arist. Plin. Described.
• * 1.3

  Place. Plin.
• * 1.4

  Food.
• * 1.5

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.6

  Mizaldus.
• * 1.7

  Pareus l. 20. c. 24. Gene∣ration. Pet. Mart. Port. Nat. Mag. l. 2. Sympa∣thy.
• * 1.8

  Sympa∣thy.
• * 1.9

  Plin.
• * 1.10

  Nature.
• * 1.11

  Agrico.
• * 1.12

  Poyson. Albert.
• * 1.13

  〈…〉〈…〉. 3.
• * 1.14

  〈◊〉〈◊〉.
• * 1.15

  〈◊〉〈◊〉.
• * 1.16

  〈…〉〈…〉.
• * 1.17

  Helmon. 〈…〉〈…〉 p. 76.
• * 1.18

  Use in meats.
• * 1.19

  Diffe∣rence.
• * 1.20

  Place.
• * 1.21

  Shape.