World of Frogs - Germany

Ah - Germany.

A land with a long association with frogs.

It seems frog-vomiting is a bit of a thing in Germany. Who knew?

Theodorus Döderlein vomits frogs and newts.

(From Georg Abraham Mercklin's De Incantamentis, 1715
as shown on Dr Cliff Pickhover's extraordinary website.)

 

And another tale from Dr Pickhover:

In 1642, Mrs. Catharina Geisslerin was widely known as "the toad-vomiting woman of Germany." She told people that she had swallowed tadpoles in swamp water, and that frogs were thriving in her intestinal tract. Whenever she drank milk, the frogs would hop about madly. Despite initial skepticism, she convinced physicians that amphibians were in her digestive system -- especially after she vomited fully-grown frogs (sometimes living) for two years in front of famous professors and medical consultants!

When Dr. Thomas Rheinesius, a great physician from Saxony, decided to study Catharina's case, she seemed to stop vomiting frogs. He wanted to examine her further, and for three months gave her various foul solutions to encourage her to vomit and have diarrhea. But no frogs came forth. Next, Professor Michaelis from Leipzig came to give Catharina more powerful agents to encourage vomiting -- which caused her to vomit a frog leg.

In 1648, after the physicians had left, Catharina again began vomiting amphibians with a passion.