The toad was also considered to be possessed of marvellous qualities for the cure of various maladies, more especially the stone that was supposed to be occasionally found in the reptile's head, and which was called _Crapaudina_. Lupton, in his seventh book of "Notable Things," thus instructs us how to obtain it. "You shall knowe whether the tode stone be the ryght and perfect stone or not. Holde the stone before a tode, so that he may see it; and if it be a ryght and true stone, the tode will leape towarde it and make as though he would snatch it, he envies so much that man should have this stone." This famous toadstone is simply one of the fossil teeth of various fishes, and is chiefly formed of phosphate of lime. Its high polish and convexity has often induced lapidaries to have it set in rings and other jewels, to which marvellous powers were attached. Pulverized toads were not only employed in medicine with supposed advantage, but were also considered a slow but certain poison. Solander relates, that a Roman woman, desirous of poisoning her husband gave him this substance; but instead of attaining her criminal desire, it cured him of a dropsy that had long perplexed him. Boccaccio relates the story of Pasquino and Simona, two young lovers, who, wandering in a garden, plucked some sage-leaves, with which Pasquino rubbed his teeth and gums. In a few minutes he fell ill and expired. Simona accused of being his assassin, was brought before a magistrate, who ordered an immediate investigation of the matter, when, on proceeding to the garden, Simona, after relating the particulars of the case, took some leaves from the same plant and used them in a similar manner. In a few minutes the lovers were reunited in death; when it was discovered that a large toad was under the root of the plant to which it had communicated its deadly venom. Regarding unlawful cures, have we not seen vaccination, when first introduced, condemned from the very pulpit as an impious interference in a disease which seemed to have been assigned to mankind by the Creator as an inevitable doom? Did not these desperate bigots even pronounce that we were not warranted to seek in the brute creation a human remedy or preservative? What is still more worthy of remark, is the coincidence of a similar idea in India, where the greatest obstacle vaccination encountered arose from a belief that the natural smallpox was a dispensation of a malicious deity, called _Mah-ry-Umma_, or rather that the disease was an incarnation of the goddess herself into the person who was affected by it: the fear of irritating her, and of exposing themselves to her resentment, necessarily rendered the natives averse to vaccination, until it was impressed upon their easy belief, that _Mah-ry-Umma_ had altered her mind, and chosen this new and milder mode of manifesting her visits to her votaries.