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, 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, and venemous,
it helps against venome, and otherwayes use∣full.
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, 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, 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, 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, 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,
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;
as of a bunchbacked toad; see his figure here∣after,
&c.
POINT II. Of the green small Frog, and the
temporary Frog.
THe green Frog is very small. Some
call them calamites, from their being
among reeds, and canes; some agredula,
or field-frog, some wood-frogs; they de∣lighting
much to be there; or as to difference
them from the green Frog that men eat. The
Greeks call it Kanthis, from croaking against
rain; and Druobataes, from their skipping
amongst trees; and Diopetaes, as dropping from
the sky; and Brexantes, from croking.
It is all green throughout, except the feet.
It is usefull against many griefs. Spit into the
mouth, it helps a cough: Held in the hand, it
allays a burning-feaver. Some Cran-hens with
puls of barley-meal, and the flesh hereof boyl∣ed,
and give the hen to those in hectique
feavers; some cut it in the midst, and apply it
to the reins in dropsies, to fetch out the water.
The liver tied in a Cranes-skin, makes lusty.
The fat is good for tooth-ach. The blood
dropped in, where hairs on the cheeks have
been plucked out, keeps them from growing
againe. Some prick the Frogs with a copper
pin, and annoint those places with the blood.
The temporary Frog hath the name from its
short life.