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.

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    A GOOD way to get the stone called crapaudina out of the toad : put a great, or overgrown toad (first bruised in divers places) into an earthen pot, and put the same in an ants' hilJock, and cover the same with earth, which toad at length the ants will eat, so that the bones of the toad and stone will be left in the pot, which Mizaldus and many others hath oftentimes proved, Lupton, Notable Things, bk. vii. § i8. You shall know whether the Toad-stone called crapaudina be the right and perfect stone or not : hold the stone before a toad, so that he may see it, and if it be a right and true stone, the toad will leap toward it, and make as though he would snatch it from you ; he envieth so much that a man should have that stone. This was credibly told Mizaldus for truth by one of the French King's Physicians, which affirmed that he did see the trial thereof Ibid., bk. vii. § 79. There is a precious stone in the head of a toad, and there be many that wear these stones in rings, being verily persuaded, that they keep them from all manner of gripings, and pains of the belly. But the art is in taking it out, for it must be taken out of the head alive, before the toad be dead, with a piece of cloth of the colour of red scarlet, wherewithal they are much delighted, so that while they stretch out themselves as it were in sport upon that cloth, they cast out the stone of their head, but instantly they sup it up again, unless it be taken from them through some secret hole in the said cloth, whereby it falleth into a cistern or vessel of water, into the which the toad dareth not enter, by reason of the coldness of the water. Now stones are engendered in living creatures two manner of ways, either through heat, or extreme cold, as in the snail, perch, crab, Indian tortoises and toads ; so that by ex- tremity of cold this stone should be gotten. In the presence of poison it will change the colour. TopscII, History of Serpents, p. 727. [Topsell is neither for nor against the existence of this stone, but he cannot believe that it is generated by cold, be- cause the stone is hard.]