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Updated: May 2, 2025
The name alone simply the name "Batrachites," the Greek for toad-stone was sufficient to lead the fertile imagination of the mediæval doctors to invent all the other particulars! It is a case precisely similar to that of the old lady who was credited with having vomited "three black crows."
We have not, it must be noted, any specimens of the toad-stone at the present day actually known to have been brought from Coptos. It is quite possible that the fossil fish-tooth was substituted ages ago for Pliny's Batrachites, and was never found at Coptos at all! Whether that is so or not, the fact is that Pliny never said it came out of a toad, but merely that it was of the colour of a toad.
It is mentioned in various old treatises concerning the magical and medicinal properties of gems and stones under its Latin name, "Bufonius lapis," and was also called Borax, Nosa, Crapondinus, Crapaudina, Chelonitis, and Batrachites. It was also called Grateriano and Garatronius, after a gentleman named Gratterus, who in 1473 found a very large one, reputed to have marvellous power.
The Pliny referred to is Pliny the Elder, the celebrated Roman naturalist who wrote a great treatise on natural history, which we still possess, and died in A.D. 79 whilst visiting the eruption of Vesuvius. He says nothing of the Batrachites being found inside the toad, nor does he mention its medicinal virtues.
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