“Then this white sweat of the toad must be a perfectly horrible venom,” Jules remarked.
“Travelers tell us that certain South American Indian tribes poison the tips of their arrows with this venom. First they impale alive on a long stick a number of these animals, and then put them near the fire to make their warts sweat. The fluid that oozes out is collected in a large leaf, and into this fluid the savages dip their arrow-heads, a wound from which is then likely to prove fatal.”
“Isn’t it the truth, then,” asked Jules, “that toads are venomous?”
“Yes and no. Applied in any way but by injection, the toad’s sweat is harmless; to act as venom it must mix with the blood through a wound. But I will not repeat what I have already told you about the viper’s venom. The toad is powerless to make [[284]]the slightest wound in our flesh, and therefore it is absolutely impossible for it to harm us. It possesses a poison without being able to make any use of it except to bedew its own body by perspiring, thus repelling its enemies by the horrid smell and taste of this sweat. You can handle a toad without any sort of risk if you wish to; wash your hands immediately afterward if they have become moistened by the contact, and there will be no further trouble. Unless the foolish fancy should seize you to collect a little of the venomous liquid on the point of a penknife and then prick yourself with the knife till you drew blood, I can assure you positively that the toad would cause you no injury whatever.”
“That is plain enough,” Jules admitted, “for the toad has no means of making a wound to receive the venom from its warts; but they tell of other kinds of venom such as urine thrown to a distance and drivel running from the mouth.”
“No drivel runs from the toad’s mouth, nor is there any truth in the animal’s poisoning fruit and grass with its saliva. That is pure calumny invented to blacken the detested animal.”
“And the urine?”
“The toad, when molested, discharges its urine as a means of defense, but not to any distance. You would have to hold your face close to the animal to receive the discharge in the eyes. If that should happen to some careless person, a temporary redness of the eyes would be the utmost result. But no one would think of putting his face so close to the [[285]]animal, and so there is no cause for alarm on that score.”
“What about the creature’s terrible breath?” was Jules’s next inquiry.
“Another calumny on a par with that about the saliva. Its breath is no more harmful than any other animal’s. So there is absolutely nothing left of the charges brought against the toad. The poison it sweats in moments of danger to drive away its enemies cannot injure as venom injures, because the animal has no means of injecting it into a wound and mixing it with the blood, as venom must be mixed to take effect. The discharge of its urine falls too short to be dangerous, and even if it should reach its mark its effect would be so slight that it is not worth considering. Does any one give a thought to the hedgehog’s urine when that animal sprays itself with this liquid on being molested? The toad’s similar mode of defense is no more to be feared. The other complaints, such as the swelling of one’s hands after touching the animal, air poisoned by its breath, fruit and vegetables infected by the saliva and the creature’s tracks, all come from people’s prejudice, their imagination, which has given the poor batrachian a bad reputation.