Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging.

  • Seager, H. W. (Herbert West), 1848-
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    321/376 (page 309)
    for they eat so much every day as they can grip in their fore-foot, as it were sizing themselves, lest the whole earth should not serve them, till the spring. They also love to eat sage, and yet the root of sage is to them deadly poison. They destroy bees, without all danger to them- selves, for they will creep to the holes of their hives, and there blow in upon the bees, by which breath they draw them out of the hive and so destroy them as they come out. About their generation, there are many worthy ob- servations in nature ; sometimes they are bred out of the putrefaction and corruption of the earth ; it hath also been seen, that, out of the ashes of a Toad burnt, not only one, but many Toads, have been regenerated the year following. In the New World there is a province called Darien, the air whereof is wonderful unwholesome, because all the country standeth upon rotten marshes. It is there observed, that when the slaves, or servants water the pavements of the doors, from the drops of water which fall on the right hand are instantly many Toads engendered, as in other places such drops of water are turned into gnats. It hath also been seen that women conceiving with child have like- wise conceived at the same time a frog, or a Toad, or a lizard. And for this cause, women, at such time as their child beginneth to quicken in their womb, do drink the juice of parsley and leeks, to kill such conceptions if any be. But in men's stomachs there are found frogs and Toads. This evil happeneth unto such men as drink water. And Toads are bred in the bodies of men, and yet after- wards these Toads do kill the bodies they are bred in ; for the venom is so tempered, that at last it worketh when it is come to ripeness. For the casting out of such a Toad bred in the body, they take a serpent and [disem]bowel him ; then they cut off the head and the tail ; the residue of the body they likewise part into small pieces, which they seethe in water and take off the fat which swimmeth at the top, which the sick person drinketh, until by vomiting he avoid all the Toads in his stomach. Toads sometimes in anger lift up themselves, for great is their wrath, obstinacy, and desire to be revenged upon their adversaries, especially the red Toad ; for if she take hold of any thing in her mouth, she will nev^r let it go till she die, and many times she sendeth forth poison out of her buttocks